OTRADI Welcomes New Board Members

We are thrilled to welcome Ramsey and Karl to OTRADI’s Board of Directors:

Karl Mundorff, Executive Director of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Oregon State University

Ramsey Cox, Founder of Ramsey Cox Media Relations and Public Affairs

OBI Client Company Wins

Rewire AI

• Rewire AI’s CSciO, Kristy Lawton, was an invited speaker on OBA’s Bio On The Rocks Artificial Intelligence panel.
• Rewire AI’s CEO, John Harkness, was an invited speaker on TAO’s Generative AI in Healthcare panel.
• John Harkness was honored to meeting with Senator Ron Wyden and Business Oregon to discuss Oregon’s role in the international marketplace and how we can support trade from Oregon businesses, like Rewire AI.
• Rewire launched the next generation of their image analysis platform, called Polygon AI. This milestone marks the addition of new AI capabilities, advanced multiplex analysis, and 3D image processing.

Trace Biosciences

• Received an investment from the Elevate Innovation Gap Fund.
• Trace Biosciences is creating imaging agents for surgery that highlights nerves to eliminate surgical nerve damage.

Gamma Diagnostics

• We are thrilled to announce an exclusive distribution agreement and the SAHPRA approval of GammaCoeur™ CVD Risk ELISA Test System with Afri Grow (Pty) Ltd. For more information, see our press release.
• We were awarded a Phase I STTR of $277,710 by the NIH to develop antisense oligonucleotides to regulate Gamma Prime Fibrinogen levels.

Hemex Health

• Our CEO, Patti White, and Gerrit van Roekel, VP of Business Development, traveled to Ghana to show our new, easy-to-use cartridge that will simplify sample preparation for our sickle test to clinical partners at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.
• Pinecrest Healthcare Ltd, our distributor in Nigeria, presented Gazelle at the Nigeria Society for Haematology and Blood Transfusion conference, outlining Gazelle’s role in facilitating Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) testing in the country to subject matter experts.

HTI

• Successfully presented CryoFast ™ – an AI-based platform for automating cryo-EM image collection at ACA’23 and M&M’23 – two international microscopy conferences. Met with industry partners and received strong product support from the cryo-EM community.
• Received NSF Phase II supplemental funding to integrate CryoFast ™ with the leading cryo-EM camera vendor’s data collection application.
• Welcome Leo Crowder and welcome back Ryan Dehart – two great additions to our development team.
• Looking to fill an opening for a Sr. Development AI/ML Engineer (see job description here).
• Signed MSA with a major European chemicals company for cryo-EM structure determination services for agricultural crop protection chemicals project.
• Embarked on a new project using cryo-EM to assess Lipid Nanoparticles with mRNA for a leading non-profit working on scaling Coronavirus vaccine production to developing lower-income countries.

Sparrow Pharmaceuticals (Alumnus)

• Endocrine Society announced that their Outstanding Innovation Award will recognize Sparrow’s work on a potential new medicine for patients with Cushing’s syndrome, autonomous cortisol secretion, or who rely on long-term glucocorticoid (e.g., prednisone) to control autoimmune diseases and other conditions.
• Read about the 2024 Laureate Recipients here.

Enroll by September 14 for the OCTRI BIP Corp

This 6-week I-Corps short course offers a new approach to accelerate the translation of discoveries from lab to clinical practice. Based on the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (I-CorpsTM) program, BIP Corp is an evidence-based experience that will take you out of your comfort zone to connect with potential customers and provide you with a competitive business case for future funding, partnership and translational science opportunities.

Clinicians, scientists, postdocs, graduate students, engineers and entrepreneurs with an early stage idea. Teams (2+) encouraged.

In this course, you will:

• Determine the commercial viability of your idea
• Develop a successful business case to secure funding and attract collaborators
• Meet with biomedical and business startup experts for advice and feedback
• Expand your innovation network
• Further your research idea and gain preliminary data for grant and SBIR/STTR proposals

Wednesdays, September 20-October 25
9:00-11:00 AM
Virtual format
Free for OHSU and non-OHSU participants

Course details and schedule information
Enroll by Sept 14th

OBI Virtual Lunch & Learn: FDA Submissions –
Best Practices for Early Stage Startups
September 20, 2023
12:00-1:00 PM
Virtual
Register now!

OBI Virtual Lunch & Learn:
Oregon InC’s SBIR Support Programs
September 27, 2023
12:00-1:00 PM
Virtual
Register now!

OBI Accelerate Happy Hour Networking
October 5, 2023
5:30-7:00 PM
OBI Event Space, Portland
Registration now open!

OBI Lunch & Learn: Streamlining DEI with
Inclusive Hiring and Retention Tools
October 11, 2023
12:00-1:00 PM
OBI Event Space, Portland
Registration now open!

Oregon Bio Biotech Summit 2023
October 25, 2023
1:00-7:30 PM
Twist Bioscience – Wilsonville
Get tickets

You’re Invited to Celebrate OTRADI’s 15th Anniversary

Join us for a celebration: 15 years of OTRADI and 10 years of the Oregon Bioscience Incubator!
September 14, 2023 from 5pm – 8pm

You are invited to attend OTRADI’s 15-Year Anniversary and OBI’s 10-Year Anniversary Celebration at the grand opening of OBI’s event space. We’re inviting the entire bio and startup entrepreneurship community, as well as legislators, partners, collaborators and supporters, to attend and celebrate 15 years of bio-research and startup accomplishments for our OTRADI/OBI community.

Come learn about the amazing work our researchers, entrepreneurs and startups have been engaged in for the past 15 years in Oregon. You’ll enjoy sparkling conversation, food, and beverages at the launch of our new event space.

Get tickets!

Premier Sponsors:

• PhRMA – Building a Better Health Care System
• HP – Here at HP we are committed to innovating and reinventing your digital life

Ambassador Sponsors:

• Absci – Creating Drugs at the Speed of AI
• Geffen Mesher – Providing financial statement audits, tax compliance and consulting services
• The Commerce Bank of Oregon – An Exceptional Business Bank

Food & Beverage Sponsors:

• JLL – Portland Commercial Real Estate Services
• George Fox University – This is Joy

Sponsorship opportunities still available. Inquire here.

OBI Client Company Wins

CANX, LLC

• CANX recently hired Felix Cohen to their staff.
• They are developing therapeutics to address iron-related health conditions such as iron overload disease and certain forms of cancer which depend on iron for their growth.
• CANX’s lab is located at OBI.

ESG Brands

• Selected for German-funded impact accelerator, Global Entrepreneurship Centre (GEC) Summer Cohort. 1 of 15 global start-ups chosen by GEC to accelerate scale and funding in order to unlock global impact.
• Proud to announce we have secured partnership and funding from GTT Group’s Ideaship Fund focused on accelerating growth through IP strategy and we invite you to contact chase.kahmann@theESGbrands.com to learn more.
• Successfully online and operating out of OBI Lab space kicking off local Portland IP development at the intersection of farms x chemistry x fashion.

Hemex Health

• Hemex Health welcomes Stacey Kuo as their new Marketing & Communications Manager.
• Peter Galen, Chief Innovation Officer, served as a panelist at Davos Worldwide Summer 2023, a conference focused on designing and implementing global impact initiatives. During the panel, Peter discussed the crucial role healthcare companies play in eradicating Sickle Cell Disease.
• We are thrilled to announce that Josh Cyphers has joined us as the new VP of Finance at Hemex Health. Josh has held senior roles in both large and startup companies, and brings a passion for making a positive social impact.

OCTRI Biomedical Innovation Commercialization Readiness Program

This 6-week I-Corps short course offers a new approach to accelerate the translation of discoveries from lab to clinical practice. Based on the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps (I-CorpsTM) program, BIP Corp is an evidence-based experience that will take you out of your comfort zone to connect with potential customers and provide you with a competitive business case for future funding, partnership and translational science opportunities.

Clinicians, scientists, postdocs, graduate students, engineers and entrepreneurs with an early stage idea. Teams (2+) encouraged.

In this course, you will:

• Determine the commercial viability of your idea
• Develop a successful business case to secure funding and attract collaborators
• Meet with biomedical and business startup experts for advice and feedback
• Expand your innovation network
• Further your research idea and gain preliminary data for grant and SBIR/STTR proposals

Wednesdays, September 20-October 25
9:00-11:00 AM
Virtual format
Free for OHSU and non-OHSU participants

Course details and schedule information
Enroll by Sept 14th

Now Open – 2023 BVC Applications

Are you a founder who is ready to take your company to the next level? If so, Bend Venture Conference wants to hear from you! For the past 20 years, the Bend Venture Conference (BVC) has been the premier angel conference in the Pacific Northwest, making a difference in Central Oregon and beyond. In addition to funding opportunities, participants make meaningful connections with fellow entrepreneurs, investors, top fund managers, and business leaders. Applications to participate and pitch at BVC 2023 are now open!

This exceptional event offers three categories of competition: Growth Stage, Impact and Early Stage. Applicants can apply from anywhere, but must commit to attending the conference in person on October 19 and 20, 2023.

Investor Match is Seeking Founders

A message from InvestorMatch:

InvestorMatch.ai is designed to eliminate the constant noise created when searching, qualifying funders and matching them to your funding needs. Our onboarding processes is comprehensive using machine learning and natural language processing, which translates to less meetings, less time and most importantly, better quality connections that lead to successful engagements.

And …. yes it’s free to founders.

Our database of international funders, private, public and commercial, is one of the largest. We specifically make the introduction to your ideal funder using your criteria. No more wondering ”do they get us” but rather curated introductions to the right people, at the right time, with the right resources.

InvestorMatch.ai is without charge have you join our platform in exchange for your feedback. Finding the right opportunities is all about qualification, with great data, that’s our mission.

Ready to get funded by a firm that understands you, your product or service and is eager to move forward ? Log in to: app.InvestorMatch.ai and let’s find you funding.

PIE Demo Day 2023
August 10, 2023
4:00-6:00 PM
The Redd on Salmon St. – Portland
Virtual option too!
Register here

Founders Investing in Founders Happy Hour
August 16, 2023
4:00-6:00 PM
TrovaTrip – Portland
Register now

Oregon Bio Women CONNECT 2023
August 17, 2023
5:00-8:00 PM
Genentech – Portland
Get tickets

Careers in Science Communication Webinar
August 23, 2023
2:00-3:00 PM (Pacific)
Virtual
Register – free

PDXWIT Presents: Game Night Summer Soiree
August 24, 2023
5:30-7:00 PM
Autodesk – Portland
Free to attend – register here

OBI Client Company Wins

HTI:

• Successfully delivered CryoDiscovery™ presentation at ACA23  ( American Crystallographic Association) on July 9 with over 200 attendees.
• Signed MSA (master services agreement) for cryo-em nanoparticles analysis with path.org, the non-profit funded by the Gates Foundation in Seattle.
• Had over 30 partner meetings at BIO 2023 which resulted in few good sales leads.

ESG Brands

• Awarded acceptance into the Germany supported Global Entrepreneurship Centre (GEC) for scaling start-ups which includes €25,000 in-kind contribution and 10 weeks of supported programming to facilitate growth. The GEC scales innovative companies with sustainable technologies, processes, and business models for impact.
• Raised $200,000 out of the $500,000 goal for 2nd round funding. Targeting to close before the end of July to support scale-up and further development.
• Accomplished successful repeatability trial for their accelerated degumming process.
• Accomplished 90/10 blended sliver: a precursor to yarn spinning, and a key milestone in the development process.

PDX Pharmaceuticals

• We were granted a new US patent (11,679,082) on nanoparticle co-delivering broad ranges of mitotic kinase inhibitors and immune checkpoint inhibitors.
• We received the phase I portion ($400K/1 year) of our fast-track SBIR award from the NCI focusing development of a new radiation sensitizer based on our nanoparticle platform.

Hemex Health

• We were awarded a $3M NIH grant to bring the Gazelle Hb Variant Test for Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) to the U.S. market.
• The Hb Variant Test, one of the tests supported by the Gazelle diagnostic platform, can detect SCD and beta thalassemia – genetic blood disorders that can result in debilitating pain, disability, severe complications or death.

Oregon Startups – Need Advice?

We have a network of BioMentors who are available to provide short-term pro bono advice and assistance to promising life science and digital health entrepreneurs across the state of Oregon. Our BioMentors have valuable expertise in a wide range of business topics that are integral to the success of early-stage life science companies, including:

ACCOUNTING, BUSINESS PLANS, DIGITAL HEALTH, GOVERNMENT FUNDING, HEALTH IT
LEGAL/IP, LICENSING, MACHINE LEARNING/AI, MANAGEMENT, MANUFACTURING
MARKET ANALYSIS, MARKETING, PRIVATE FUNDING, PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT, REGULATORY/FDA

For more information and assistance, fill out this form and we’ll match you with a BioMentor who can help.

Now Open – 2023 BVC Applications

Are you a founder who is ready to take your company to the next level? If so, Bend Venture Conference wants to hear from you! For the past 20 years, the Bend Venture Conference (BVC) has been the premier angel conference in the Pacific Northwest, making a difference in Central Oregon and beyond. In addition to funding opportunities, participants make meaningful connections with fellow entrepreneurs, investors, top fund managers, and business leaders. Applications to participate and pitch at BVC 2023 are now open!

This exceptional event offers three categories of competition: Growth Stage, Impact and Early Stage. Applicants can apply from anywhere, but must commit to attending the conference in person on October 19 and 20, 2023.

MedX@Düsseldorf!

November 13^th to 16^th 2023, the world’s largest trade show for the health industry will take place in Düsseldorf, Germany. MEDICA’s Start-up Park is the global meeting point for digital pioneers and the place where young companies can boost their business.

The office of Economic Development Düsseldorf organizes for the third year in a row the MedX@Düsseldorf competition – an incredible and unique opportunity for startups in the MedTech industry to take their success to new heights.

This is the perfect occasion for Startups to connect with new, international partners, to meet decision makers and to gain visibility on the health market. This could be the first or next big step towards internationalization.

On top of the booth, startups can look forward to a tailored MedTech workshop with insights of the European Market and the local ecosystem.

Further information as well as the application form can be found on the following website: www.duesseldorf.de/medx.

The application deadline is August 4. We look forward to receiving innovative and promising ideas from the MedTech industry.

Biomedical Entrepreneurship Fireside Chat
July 13, 2023
2:00-3:00 PM
Virtual
Free to attend – register here

PDXWIT Presents: July Happy Hour
Data & Algorithmic Justice
July 18, 2023
12:00-1:00 PM
Virtual
Free to attend – register here

Scismic Webinar: U.S. Visa and Immigration
Options for International Scientists and Researchers
July 18, 2023
2:00-3:00 PM (Pacific)
Virtual
Free registration

Technology Association of Oregon
Party in the Pinot
July 22, 2023
5:00-9:30 PM
Scholls Valley Lodge – Hillsboro
Get tickets

Women in Science PDX
Resume Feedback Mixer
July 26, 2023
6:00-8:30 PM
Lucky Lab Beer Hall – Portland
Free to attend – register here

Oregon Bio: Bio on Tap
July 27, 2023
5:00-8:00 PM
McMenamins Cornelius Pass Roadhouse – Hillsboro
Get tickets

PIE Demo Day 2023
August 10, 2023
4:00-6:00 PM
The Redd on Salmon St. – Portland
Register here

It’s OTRADI’s 15th Anniversary!

A message from Executive Director, Heather Ellis:

We are excited to be celebrating 15 years of OTRADI and 10 years of the Oregon Bioscience Incubator (OBI). I would like to thank all the Oregonians who have supported the work that we do at the OBI.  For those who don’t know our background, OTRADI is a non-profit institute primarily funded by the state of Oregon via grants administered by Business Oregon.

OTRADI and the OBI are 100% driven by our mission, which is to fuel the economic development of Oregon’s bio industry by translating innovative research into the next generation of products and companies that benefit health and create high-wage jobs for Oregon.

In a recent economic impact survey of the 18-year period between 2002 and 2020, total bioscience employment in Oregon increased 85% (+5,270 jobs), total wages increased 215% (+$593.4 million), and average annual wages increased 71% (+$31,340). Oregon’s 1,480 life science firms and leading academic and research institutions generated a total economic impact of almost 66,000 jobs and $15.7 billion in output in 2020. (Association, 2022)

Since OTRADI’s inception in 2008, we have done our best to listen to the needs of these startups and we have evolved and responded to these needs by building our facility and developing programs to help build and advance the bio startup community in Oregon.  OTRADI has evolved over the past fifteen years from a research institute, which was what was sorely needed at that time, into—ten years ago—building out and opening the Oregon Bioscience Incubator—the state’s first and only bio-focused startup hub.

In 2013, when we opened the doors of the OBI, we started with six startup companies. In response to overwhelming demand, we have expanded throughout the years, and we are now home to thirty-two startup companies working on innovative new drugs, medical devices, and digital health IT products.

Our goal was simple—do everything in our power to make it easier for scientists to take the plunge and launch and grow their own startup companies here in Oregon.

Bio startups are different than other startups.  Before they can bring their health and wellness products to market, they must overcome the high bar set by the FDA— which requires specialized space, highly trained personnel, a long timeline, and lots of investment. We heard this, and the OBI responded by building our incubator to be a physical home with labs and specialized equipment for startups.

Bio startups also need a robust network of mentors, advisors and investors to succeed. We heard this, and the OBI responded by creating the state’s first BioMentoring network, made up of more than 120 professionals willing to donate their valuable time to help bio-entrepreneurs across the State succeed.

Bio startups also need entrepreneurial support and a community of public and private organizations to help them grow.  We heard this, and the OBI responded by building strong partnerships and collaborations with the state’s research universities and support organizations, including Oregon Health and Science University, Oregon Bioscience Association, Technology Association of Oregon, Oregon Entrepreneur Network, Portland State Business Accelerator, private venture capital funds, angel investment groups, developers, and more. We thank these key partners for their hard work and long-time support of our bio startup community.

Although I am biased, I truly believe that the OBI holds the state’s most innovative and promising startup companies. Every day at the OBI, is about showcasing and advancing our 32 startup companies’ work, so please let me take a moment to brag on their behalf.

In the past 15 years, the state’s investment in the OBI has allowed our startups to raise $685M in federal and private funding, generate $85M in revenue, and create 871 jobs. I am more than proud of our startups’ return on investment for Oregon, and we’re just getting started.

We see incredible promise on the horizon.  The OBI will be here to listen and to respond to the evolving needs of our bio startup community as they catapult Oregon into the international spotlight with their innovative work.

Please let me thank the most important people within our organization.  Thank you to OTRADI’s esteemed board of directors; to our two Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, Bill Newman and Gordon Hoffman; and to OTRADI’s small but mighty staff, including Rene Miller, Susan Thompson, and Sarah Vivian.

Finally, let me thank the immensely talented companies that currently reside at the OBI:

AirOmatix

Buchanan Science

CANX LLC

Circumvent Pharmaceuticals

EndoSound

ESG Brands

Gamma Diagnostics

GenerX

Health Technology Innovations

Hemex Health

Keliomics

Madorra

NeuvaRx

OmnEcoil Instruments

PDX Pharmaceuticals

ProMedix

Qtonics

Refeyn

Rewire Neuro

RxHomeTest

Senju

Sirona Dx

Sonivate Medical

StoneStable

Suturegard Medical

Thaena

Trace Biosciences

Vaginal Biome Science

Veana Therapeutics

Velanidi Technologies

Virogenomics BioDevelopment

VitalFlo

We truly believe that Oregon entrepreneurs will drive the next generation of breakthroughs to improve lives.  Thank you for your collaboration and support over the past fifteen years, and we look forward to your continued support as partners in these exciting days to come.

References:
Oregon Bioscience Association. (2022). Oregon’s Bio Boom 2022 Economic Impact Report. https://www.oregonbio.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/2022FinalEIR_Full.pdf

Welcome to the OBI
AirOmatix and ESG Brands

AirOmatix is developing the only portable oxygen concentrator for high-flow oxygen patients, freeing them from bulky oxygen cylinders.  Our novel, patent-pending technology will also enable us to develop low-flow oxygen concentrators that are smaller and quieter than existing options.

ESG Brands is a sustainable technology company operating in the materials science space with agricultural waste as feedstock. ESG Brands core technology is a green chemistry based degumming process for the textile industry–clothing and footwear, home textiles, and technical textiles–converting agricultural waste into cotton 10x faster than conventional processes with potable water as a byproduct. In addition, the company is active in sustainable manufacturing and the broader materials science space: food and beverage, and next-gen bio-synthetics. ESG Brands believe that Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) is essential for a sustainable future, and are committed to using business to make a positive impact on the planet. The first materials product from ESG will be marketed as BANEX, the world’s next natural fiber, from the daily waste streams at banana plantations.

AirOmatix and ESG Brands join the OBI on June 15, 2023. Let’s give them a warm welcome!

OBI Client Company Wins

ProMedix, Inc.:

• ProMedix was the winner of Oregon Entrepreneurs Network‘s entrepreneurial education and angel investment program Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience in May! They received the $185,000 AOBIO angel investment, as well as an additional $75,000 investment from ONAMI.
• They published an important paper in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine, entitled Evaluation of electronic measurement of capillary refill for Sepsis screening at ED triage.
• ProMedix has been invited to attend the Creative Destruction Lab Super Session in Toronto, Canada after graduating from their Vancouver, Canada accelerator program.

VitalFlo:

• VitalFlo was a finalist in May’s Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience finale.

SUTUREGARD Medical:

• At SUTUREGARD Medical, we released a new product this year called HEMIGARD Interlock, which allows surgical incision closure/support without sutures.  A proprietary hook and loop technology from 3M has been incorporated into our existing HEMIGARD design and allows for considerable tension relief at the incision healing edge.  This protects skin edge blood flow and optimizes healing and scarring outcomes.
• Our Classic HEMIGARD ASRD (Adhesive Suture Retention Device) is used now in over 230 hospitals in the USA and helps surgeons close high tension or at risk wounds.  We envision HEMIGARD Interlock for gentler support in elective surgeries such as joint replacement, bunion correction, cosmetic surgery and other.
• Q1 2023 was our first profitable quarter and we hope to build on this momentum and continue to our goal of being self funding through sales revenue.

Trace Biosciences:

• Trace Biosciences won a $125,000 investment from ONAMI at the Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience finale in May.

Gamma Diagnostics:

• We published a 103-patient COVID-19 study showing that our diagnostic test for gamma prime fibrinogen (GPF) can differentiate between mild/moderately ill patients, severely ill patients, and non-patients better than six other widely-used diagnostic tests.
• The paper is at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10147444/.

Keliomics:

• Keliomics won a $100,000 investment from ONAMI and a $100,000 investment from Ideaship at the Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience finale in May.

HTI:

• Attended BIO23 as a co-sponsor of the Oregon Bioscience Association‘s Oregon Pavilion. BIO2023,  BIO International Convention | BIO, is the premier international conference with over 17K attendees representing biotech, pharma and investment companies. Meetings set with over 30+ partners to advance cryo-em service and software business.
• Successfully finished early CryoDiscovery ™ testing at OHSU/PNCC.
• Successfully submitted the Phase2 matching grant final report to Oregon Business.
• Submitted application, per NSF invitation,  for TCEP, Technology Enhancement for Commercial Partnerships (TECP) supplemental funding,
• Signed Cryo-EM MSA with BASF
• Advanced partnership project with ADRx toward full completion into 3D model building stage

StoneStable:

• StoneStable was a finalist at Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience in May.

Synergic Medical Technologies (alumnus):

• Synergic has initiated a clinical trial for the vibrotactile treatment we have developed for people with Parkinson’s. The study is posted on clinicaltrials.gov (NCT05881460) and our partners at OHSU will start enrolling people soon. We expect the data from this study to enable us to submit to FDA for market clearance.

OBI’s BioMentors Offer Free Help for Oregon Startups

We have a network of over 120 BioMentors who are available to provide short-term pro bono advice and assistance to promising life science and digital health entrepreneurs across the state of Oregon. Our BioMentors have valuable expertise in a wide range of business topics that are integral to the success of early-stage life science companies, including:

For more information and assistance, fill out this form and we’ll match you with a BioMentor who can help.

Office Space for Your Bioscience Startup

If you have a bioscience or health innovation startup and need office space, come talk to us! We operate the only bioscience-focused incubator in Oregon, with private offices, private labs, co-working space, and shared labs for startups in bioscience – including digital health, medical devices, AI/ML, diagnostics, therapeutics, pharmaceuticals, and more! We have brand new office spaces available now.

Submit your facility inquiry here and let’s schedule a time to talk.

Health Tech Forum:
Care Beyond the Provider’s Office
June 15, 2023
3:00-5:30 PM
Google – Portland
Free to attend – register here

PDXWIT Presents:
Pride Happy Hour
June 20, 2023
5:30-7:30 PM
DAT Freight & Analytics – Portland
Free to attend – register here

2023 Invent Oregon Collegiate Challenge Finals
June 22, 2023
1:30-6:00 PM
Redd East – Portland
Free to attend – get tickets

Angel Oregon Tech Finale & Innovation Showcase
June 22, 2023
3:00-7:00 PM
Jupiter NEXT – Portland
Get tickets here

Oregon Bioscience Incubator
Happy Hour Networking
July 6, 2023
5:30-7:00 PM
River Forum Outdoor Patio – Portland
Free to attend – register here

OBI Client Company Wins

Rewire AI:

• Rewire Neuro is now Rewire AI. This change comes as part of a re-energized effort from Rewire to more fully embrace their position as a premier AI company with technology that has application in more markets than just
  neuroscience.

StoneStable:

• StoneStable is a finalist at Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience. Finale will be held on May 17 at Amaterra Winery.

PDX Pharmaceuticals:

• PDX Pharmaceuticals has received a Notice of intent to fund a fast-track SBIR application from the National Cancer Institute, which focuses on development of a drug candidate named PETTRA (PLK1 and EGFR Targeted Therapy and Radiation sensitizer) for lung cancer treatment. The budget is about $2.5M over 3 years.
• PDX Pharmaceuticals has been selected as one of seven semi-finalists for the 2023 AIM-HI Women’s Venture Competition. The winner will receive up to $1 million investment.

VitalFlo:

• VitalFlo is a finalist at Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience. Finale will be held on May 17 at Amaterra Winery.

Health Technology Innovations (HTI):

• Health Technology Innovations, Inc. (HTI) is excited to announce industry veteran Dr. J. Brad Pesavento has joined the company as its new VP Strategy & Corporate Development. In this role, Brad will head HTI’s business development for cryo-EM services with pharma/biotech customers, lead its commercial strategy and engage with the investment community.
• Health Technology Innovations, Inc. (HTI) is excited to announce that Dr. Santi Adavani is joining HTI Advisory Board as Senior Advisor. Dr. Adavani brings extensive experience in AI/ML and software product development to HTI.
• Read full press releases here.

Keliomics:

• We are a finalist at the 2023 Oregon Technology Awards which will be held on May 16, 2023.
• We are also a finalist at Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience. Finale will be held on May 17 at Amaterra Winery.
• We kicked off our OncoScreen pilot study in partnership with Legacy Health and enrolled our first patient. This marks the first time an intact breast tumor has been cultured in breast adipose tissue from the same patient.

Gamma Diagnostics:

• The TAO awards committee has nominated us as a finalist for the Technology Company of the Year, Emerging category. The 2023 Oregon Technology Awards will be held on May 16, 2023.
• The results of our clinical trial, which demonstrates that our diagnostic test for gamma prime fibrinogen (GPF) measures COVID-19 respiratory disease severity, have been published in the journal “Blood Cells, Molecules, and Diseases.”

ProMedix, Inc.:

• ProMedix is a finalist at Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience. Finale will be held on May 17 at Amaterra Winery.

EndoSound:

• EndoSound Inc., a privately held medical device company developing an endoscopic ultrasound platform to diagnose and treat diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, today announced the initial closing of its Series A round financing.
• The round is being led by GEO Medtech Venture Fund, a leading healthcare venture capital firm that invests in transformative medical technology, and health solutions companies seeking to improve clinical outcomes, enhance quality of life, and drive efficiency of healthcare delivery.
• The financing will support EndoSound’s ongoing research and development and preparations for commercial launch. The EndoSound Vision System (EVS) is designed to eliminate the financial burden of expanding access to care for patients who require an endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) procedure.  By attaching the EVS Transducer to a standard upper endoscope found in all hospitals and GI surgery centers, this critical technology becomes available and affordable in more areas of care.

Trace Biosciences:

• Trace Biosciences is a finalist at Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience. Finale will be held on May 17 at Amaterra Winery.
• We welcomed two new team members:
  • Nathan McMahon, Ph.D. – Clinical Project Manager
  • Bryce Timm, Ph.D. – Staff Scientist

AOBIO Finale & Innovation Showcase

It’s been an exciting three months for eighteen regional startups as they have progressed through the Angel Oregon Life and Bioscience (AOBIO) program presented by Oregon Entrepreneurs Network, OTRADI and Oregon Bioscience Incubator, Oregon Health and Science University, and the Oregon Bioscience Association.

Founders from throughout the state have participated in four educational sessions spanning from funding readiness to creating a diverse team to due diligence and how to create the perfect pitch. They have participated in two pitch sessions with feedback from regional investors and industry experts, and recently the finalists were announced: five companies who will pitch for the angel investment on May 17.

Keliomics

Promedix

StoneStable, Inc

Trace Biosciences

VitalFlo

We invite you to get in on the ground floor of Oregon’s most important emerging sectors, and meet entrepreneurs literally building the future right now at the AOBIO Finale + Innovation Showcase on Wednesday, May 17th starting at 3:00 pm at Amaterra Winery. 

There we will feature the five companies vying for equity investment, the winner of non-dilutive funding through the Emerge Initiative, and a panel presentation titled What Does Success in Life Science Innovation Look Like?

All this and delicious food and wine too.

CLICK HERE to purchase your tickets today!

OBI’s BioMentor Program Offers Free Help for Oregon Startups

We have a network of over 90 BioMentors who are available to provide short-term pro bono advice and assistance to promising life science and digital health entrepreneurs across the state of Oregon. Our BioMentors have valuable expertise in a wide range of business topics that are integral to the success of early-stage life science companies, including:

For assistance, fill out this form and we’ll match you with a BioMentor who can help.

Need Space for Your Bioscience Startup?

If you have a bioscience or health innovation startup and need wet lab or office space, come talk to us! We operate the only bioscience-focused incubator in Oregon, with private offices, private labs, co-working space, and shared labs for startups in bioscience – including digital health, medical devices, AI/ML, diagnostics, therapeutics, pharmaceuticals, and more!

Submit your facility inquiry here and let’s schedule a time to talk.

America’s Seed Fund Week

America’s Seed Fund Week is a series of virtual events representing a collaborative outreach effort that will connect entrepreneurs working on advanced technologies and the organizations that support them to the country’s largest source of early-stage funding.

This is a free and virtual opportunity for small businesses to learn about non-dilutive funding available through America’s Seed Fund that awards $4 billion annually to small businesses for R&D. Come meet with the federal agency representatives, attend roundtables, connect with entrepreneur support organizations, and find other helpful resources.

Find out more information and register here.

TiE Women Applications are Open Through June 15

TiE Women is dedicated to Embrace, Engage and Empower women entrepreneurs across the globe. The program is focused on women entrepreneurs, irrespective of the size of their enterprises, origins, standing or background. The program consists of a series of local and global events and culminates with one women-led business from Oregon competing in a global pitch competition for cash prizes!

CRITERIA:

• Female founded or co-founded startup
• A female founder or co-founder that owns at least 30% of the equity in the company
• Company has been in business for less than seven years (date of company registration no earlier than Jan. 1, 2016) at the time of application
• The ultimate objective is to help startups in their fundraising efforts hence preference will be given to startups raising funds.

TIMELINE:
Local / Global Events: Ongoing (apply to receive exclusive invitations to attend)
Applications Open: April 24, 2023
Deadline to Apply: June 15, 2023
State Pitch Competition: August TBD, 2023
Global Pitch Competition: Will take place at the TiE Global Summit, November TBD, 2023

Apply here by June 15th.

PDXWIT & AWS Present:
How to Prepare for a Technical Interview
May 11, 2023
4:30-7:30 PM
AWS – Portland
Register here

2023 Oregon Technology Awards:
Imagining a New Future
May 16, 2023
4:00-9:00 PM
Oregon Convention Center – Portland
Get tickets here

AOBIO Finale & Innovation Showcase
May 17, 2023
3:00-7:00 PM
Amaterra Winery – Portland
Get tickets here

Raising Capital: Debt vs. Equity
A Venture Catalyst Event
May 18, 2023
12:00-1:15 PM
Virtual
Register here

Bio in the High Desert
May 18, 2023
5:00-8:00 PM
Deschutes Brewery – Bend
Get tickets here

Legal Priorities for Startups:
Panel Discussion + Q&A
May 24, 2023
12:00-1:30 PM
Beaverton Building or Virtual
Register here

Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience
Fast Pitch Event – Tonight!

Meet the founders who will pitch for a direct angel investment of up to $300K at Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience (AOBIO) with this fast-pitch event hosted by Oregon Bioscience Association, Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN), Oregon Bioscience Incubator  and OHSU. You won’t want to miss the AOBIO Fast Pitch on Tuesday, April 11th online at 5:00 p.m. This is your opportunity to meet the life and bioscience startups vying for angel investment!

During the Fast Pitch session, nine AOBIO entrepreneurs (including five OBI client companies) will have a 3-5 minute pitch introducing their company to local investors. This Fast Pitch event is the next stop on the road to the AOBIO Grand Finale & Showcase, and you can expect to see four of these incredible companies make it to the main stage pitch on May 17th!

The pitch companies include:

• Ethicann Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
• Humarrow, Inc.
• Keliomics
• ProMedix, Inc.
• Prose Biosystems LLC
• StoneStable, Inc.
• Tonsil Tech
• Trace Biosciences
• VitalFlo

REGISTER HERE for the free FastPitch event to receive your virtual link

Welcome New Client Company
Vaginal Biome Science

In April, we welcomed Vaginal Biome Science to the incubator. They are occupying one of our brand new spaces in the Willamette Wharf building. From their website:

Together with our strong alliance of partners, we are broadening and accelerating groundbreaking studies into the vaginal biome, pioneering new understanding of the role of the biome as a determinant of vaginal and overall health, and developing new products, solutions, and protocols – redefining decades-old and tired approaches to women’s health.

We’re happy to have you on board!

Client Company Wins

PDX Pharmaceuticals:

• PDX Pharma received continued Phase II SBIR funding from the NCI to support a novel lung cancer treatment, ARAC-02. Read more here.

Veana Therapeutics:

• Veana Therapeutics is pleased to announce publication of a proof-of-concept study demonstrating that its oral drug, a-TEA-LS (aka VIMO) improves the anti-tumor efficacy of immune checkpoint blockade antibody in pre-clinical models of triple negative breast cancer.

Health Technology Innovations (HTI):

• Dr. Gabriella Kiss joins HTI Advisory Board as Sr. senior advisor. Dr. Kiss brings extensive experience in life science and Business Development to HTI.
• A leading cryo-EM instrument vendor has provided an LOI for integrating CryoDiscovery™, HTI’s AI-based automation platform for cryo-EM image acquisition and processing, with their product.
• The Pacific Northwest Computing Center (PNCC) and OHSU have approved for CryoDiscovery ™ field testing.
• ADRx, a drug discovery vendor, has initiated another project for Cryo-EM analysis.

Gamma Diagnostics:

• The TAO awards committee has nominated us as a finalist for the Technology Company of the Year, Emerging category.
• The 2023 Oregon Technology Awards will be held on May 16, 2023.

StoneStable:

• StoneStable will pitch in the Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience Fast Pitch event on April 11.

Sonivate Medical:

• Sonivate Medical, Inc. has been invited to SEASON Aesthetic Conference to be held at George Washington University, Washington, DC at the end of April 2023.  This will be a gathering of key opinion leaders in dermatology and plastic surgery to discuss the application of ultrasound for cosmetic procedures e.g., facial fillers.
• Besides discussions, there will be hands on using a cadaver lab for injections and several stations for the participants to rotate through including Sonivate’s next generation product.  Sonivate is one of a very few companies invited to present at this research oriented, technical symposium.  The presentation is titled SonicEyeâ Finger Probe Ultrasound System – Meeting Customer Needs through Disciplined Research.

VitalFlo:

• VitalFlo will pitch in the Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience Fast Pitch event on April 11.

ProMedix, Inc.:

• ProMedix Inc. has been awarded a U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant for $250,000.00 to conduct research and development (R&D) work on improving outcomes from sepsis through active digital monitoring of peripheral blood flow.
• ProMedix was selected to advance to the final round of Creative Destruction Labs.
• ProMedix will pitch in the Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience Fast Pitch event on April 11.

EndoSound:

• EndoSound is hiring an engineering intern. Read the job description here and send your resume to hammer@endosound.com.

Trace Biosciences:

• Trace Biosciences will pitch in the Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience Fast Pitch event on April 11.

Hemex Health:

• Hemex won a 3-year $3M NIH grant from the NHLBI to commercialize our Hb Variant test for the US market! Read the press release.
• Hemex is collaborating with MUJN Diagnostics Inc., to develop a diagnostics system that can be used to support patients being treated with alternative therapies for brain health.

Keliomics:

• Keliomics will pitch in the Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience Fast Pitch event on April 11.

Need Space for Your Bioscience Startup?

If you have a bioscience or health innovation startup and need wet lab or office space, come talk to us! We operate the only bioscience-focused incubator in Oregon, with private offices, private labs, co-working space, and shared labs for startups in bioscience – including digital health, medical devices, AI/ML, diagnostics, therapeutics, pharmaceuticals, and more!

Submit your facility inquiry here and let’s schedule a time to talk!

AOBIO Fast Pitch
April 11, 2023
5:00-7:00 PM
Virtual
Register here

April PubTalk: How to Build a Business of Impact
April 12, 2023
5:15-7:30 PM
Fresh Consulting in Portland
Get tickets here

PDXWIT Presents:
April Happy Hour:
Pathways into Privacy and Security
April 18, 2023
5:30-7:00 PM
RadarFirst in Portland
Register here

OBI Lunch & Learn: OHSU Innovates
April 19, 2023
12:00-1:00 PM
Virtual
Register here

Oregon Startup Center Educational Session:
Preparing Financials for Funding
April 26, 2023
11:30 AM-1:00 PM
Beaverton Building
Register here

OBI Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health
Happy Hour
May 4, 2023
5:30-7:00 PM
George Fox University Portland Center
Registration now open!

Client Company Wins

Health Technology Innovations (HTI):

• Charles Rice, a local Portland resident, has joined HTI as a Senior Machine Learning Development Engineer.
• Intel Corp. has asked HTI to benchmark their new Xeon platform with CryoDiscovery ™, HTI’s AI-based automation platform for cryo-EM image acquisition and processing.

VitalFlo:

• We won PitchOregon’s Life Science & Healthcare category last month!

OmnEcoil Instruments:

• We received FDA approval at the end of last week to initiate a clinical trial of our device for simultaneous MRI imaging and biopsying of the prostate.
• We have also subsequently received IRB approval from OHSU for this trial.
• We expect to initiate patient recruitment in the near future.

Hemex Health

• Patti White, CEO and co-founder of Hemex Health, was asked to speak at the IFC (International Finance Corporation) Global Private Health Conference in Cape Town, South Africa, about the innovation that small companies can bring to global health problems and the huge potential market opportunities.
• Hemex Health is featured on Business Oregon’s Innovation landing page, under “Oregon Business Solves Challenging Global Disease Testing Issue.“

OBI Mentor of the Month:
Matt Hollingsworth

Matt Hollingsworth is the CEO and Co-founder of Carta Healthcare. Matt’s experience focuses on AI/Data Science and HeathTech. He started his career as high energy physicist, worked at CERN, and was part of the team there that discovered the Higgs Boson. Matt co-founded his first startup as technical co-founder with a colleague, and then went to Stanford’s business school to specialize in healthcare operations. There, he joined the data-driven healthcare operations group, SURF. Matt started Carta based upon tech built while at Stanford. He has an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and a BA/MS in Physics from the University of Tennessee.

When asked what his colleagues appreciate about him, Matt says, “I have a fairly deep understanding of technological capabilities (spent most of my career in technical roles) and I am very good at marrying that with product and sales strategy. I’m the person in the room that reminds the engineers that cool technology cannot always be sold and the sales people that everything that can be sold should not or cannot necessarily be built. I can help people find product/market fit faster, especially in complex industries where the whole ‘lean startup’ methodology breaks down.”

Matt joined the OBI Mentoring Program this year and has hit the ground running with his mentees. Thank you, Matt, for all you do to help our startup community!

AOBIO Seeks Investors

Get all the details about investing in the Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience investment pool.

Pacific Northwest accredited investors are invited to come learn about investing with Oregon Entrepreneurs Network‘s Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience (AOBIO). The program is designed for angel investors interested in life and bioscience innovation emerging in Oregon and Southwest Washington. New and experienced angel investors are welcome!

AOBIO Investor Information Session
Thursday, March 16th
9:00 AM – 10:15 AM
Zoom – REGISTER HERE

At this session we’ll cover:

• Investment goals and objectives
• How the investment program works, including details of the due diligence process
• Investment team leadership
• Key dates, fees and program details
• Educational track content and speakers
• Q&A

Need Space for Your Bioscience Startup?

If you have a bioscience or health innovation startup and need wet lab or office space, come talk to us! We operate the only bioscience-focused incubator in Oregon, with private offices, private labs, co-working space, and shared labs for startups in bioscience – including digital health, medical devices, AI/ML, diagnostics, therapeutics, pharmaceuticals, and more! We currently have limited space availability, with some new spaces opening up very soon.

Submit your facility inquiry here and let’s schedule a time to talk!

OHSU is Hiring

OHSU is currently hiring two positions to share with our OBI community. Please feel free to spread the word!

• IT Specialist
  • This position will support work done at the OHSU Casey Reading Center related to ongoing ophthalmic clinical trials and studies. This will involve programming and maintaining code for clinical trial systems, software, data processing and quality control, as well as bioinformatics reporting. Apply here.
• Research Data Analyst 2 (Quality Assurance Manager)
  • This position will support work done at the Casey Reading Center (CRC) related to their ongoing clinical trials and studies. Requires a detail-oriented candidate who will gain experience in clinical trial FDA and international regulations. More information here.

OregonBio: Bio on the Rocks
March 14, 2023
5:00-8:00 PM
Ironlight in Lake Oswego
Get tickets here

March PubTalk: The Founder Journey
March 15, 2023
5:15-7:30 PM
Fresh Consulting in Portland
Get tickets here

AOBIO Investor Information Session
First time angel investors welcome!
March 16, 2023
9:00-10:15 AM
RSVP here

PDXWIT Presents:
March Happy Hour
March 21, 2023
5:30-7:30 PM
Viewpoint in Portland
Register here

-and-

PDXWIT Presents:
LGBTQ+ in Tech – Paths to Leadership
March 29, 2023
12:00-1:00 PM
Virtual
Register in advance

OBI Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health
Happy Hour
April 6, 2023
5:30-7:00 PM
Casa Colima Mexican Restaurant & Cantina in Portland
Registration now open!

AOBIO is Back!

Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience is back for its 2nd year! What is AOBIO? It’s a four-week investment-readiness education series for life and bioscience startups at any stage of development. But wait, there’s more! It’s also an angel investment program. At the end of the education program, those companies that are indeed investment-ready can apply to go through due diligence for up to a $300,000 equity angel investment, to be presented at the AOBIO Finale + Innovation Showcase in May.

Education series starts February 22, 2023. Learn more here! Inquire with Rene Miller or Heather Ellis for a discount coupon code for this series.

Founders: there’s a free Entrepreneur Information Session on Wednesday, February 15 from 8:30-9:15 a.m. on Zoom. RSVP here.

For accredited angel investors (including first timers!), attend a free Investor Information Session on Wednesday, February 15 from 4:00-5:15 p.m. on Zoom. RSVP here.

Angel Oregon Bio is presented by OEN in partnership with Oregon Bioscience Incubator, OHSU, and OregonBio.

Client Company Wins

EndoSound

• EndoSound receives investment from AGA’s GI Opportunity Fund. Read Business Wire press release here.

Hemex Health

• Our team at HemexDx had a fantastic time at the 25th MTAR Labcon 2023 in Alibaug! We were thrilled to interact with delegates from the Raigad region and learn about their perspectives on Gazelle.

Aronora (alumnus)

• Erik Tucker, PhD, founder and CEO of Aronora received a National Academy of Inventors Fellow award last night at the National Academy of Inventors Annual Winter Warmer: Celebrating Innovation Excellence in Oregon.

New Mentoring Cohort Begins

OBI’s Winter-Spring 2023 mentoring cohort is off and running. Each mentor-mentee pairing meets for about 2 hours a month for 6 months. For more information on how to join the next cohort, please see our Mentoring page.

PSU Center for Entrepreneurship is Hiring an Assistant Director

If you’re looking for a fulfilling opportunity working with students, entrepreneurs, and the local community, Portland State University Center for Entrepreneurship has an Assistant Director position that may be perfect for you!

Learn more and apply.

Women in Science PDX Mentor/Mentee Mixer

Mentor-mentee relationships can have an incredible impact on the lives and careers of mentees and mentors alike. At this event, we aim to provide the opportunity for mentees and mentors to engage with one another to discuss their goals and career paths, and to potentially develop mentor-mentee relationships that will last beyond the scope of this event.

This all-ages mixer will take place on March 1st at Lucky Labrador Beer Hall in NW Portland and will provide an opportunity for mentees to meet with several different mentors, in addition to plenty of open networking time.

For more information and registration, click here.

I-Corps Teams Forming

The I-Corps@NCATS lead institution, University of Alabama Birmingham, is hosting a virtual all-consortium I-Corps course and is currently registering teams. The orientation is on 2/24 and it runs through 3/31, see this link for a detailed schedule and registration for the “All CTSA Site” cohort. Attached is the flyer, this course is open to all early-stage life sciences technologies (idea through SBIR stages).

AOBIO Entrepreneur Information Session
February 15, 2023
8:30-9:15 AM
RSVP here

&

AOBIO Investor Information Session
February 15, 2023
4:00-5:15 PM
RSVP here

PDXWIT Presents:
Black History Month Happy Hour
February 21, 2023
5:30-7:30 PM
Virtual
Register here

OBI Virtual Lunch & Learn:
Business Oregon’s Commercialization Gap Fund
and SBIR Overview
February 28, 2023
12:00-1:00 PM
Virtual
Register here

OBI Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health
Happy Hour
March 2, 2023
5:30-7:00 PM
Marriott Courtyard City Center
Registration now open!

Tie Oregon’s Westside Pitch Competition
March 9, 2023
4:00-7:00 PM
Walters Cultural Arts Center, Hillsboro
Register here

Ringing in the New Year!

Welcome 2023! But before we leave 2022 behind, this end-of-year newsletter features a big OBI project that wrapped up in 2022, plus a recap of some of the outstanding and innovative projects that our client companies are working on. We hope you enjoy sharing in their success stories as much as we do.

This special edition of the OBI & OTRADI newsletter also includes some helpful information for our readers, including updates, opportunities, and some really great upcoming events. Please feel free to share. We hope you have a peaceful and prosperous 2023.

Our HIOP Space is Completed:
Thank you to Business Oregon! 

In 2021, OBI/OTRADI was granted High Impact Opportunity Project (HIOP) implementation funding from Business Oregon to build out new space to support growth of the bioscience sector in Oregon. We got right to work, transforming our prior administrative offices in the Willamette Wharf building into new labs and offices. Due to supply chain issues during a global pandemic, progress was not always speedy, but this project is now fully complete. Thank you, Business Oregon!

The OBI used the HIOP dollars to fund the build-out of 3,300 square feet into six labs and six offices to expand incubator space for startup bio companies. This new space funded via HIOP dollars has allowed us to bring in seven new companies from our waiting list into the OBI facility. One additional lab is still unleased and available to one of OBI’s current companies or a new company upon completion of our selection committee process. For life science startups seeking space, inquire here.

The seven companies in the new space include CANX, GenerX, Keliomics, PDX Pharmaceuticals, Qtonics, Trace Biosciences (formerly Inherent Targeting), and VitalFlo; they support 17 jobs with one company actively hiring an additional position. These companies have raised over $7,527,000 in funding, which was mainly secured via SBIR grants and seed funding.

Client Company Wins in 2022

Aronora (alumnus)

• Aronora co-founder and CEO Dr. Erik Tucker has been elected as Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).
• Aronora Announces Clinical Data to Be Presented at the 64th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting. Presentation to include clinical data from a phase 2 study of Gruticibart (AB023), a factor XI-targeted antibody being developed for the treatment and prevention of thrombosis and inflammation.

CANX

• CANX, LLC joined the OBI in October 2022
• CANX is developing therapeutics to address iron-related health conditions such as iron overload disease and certain forms of cancer which depend on iron for their growth.
• Founder Kerry Masterson successfully completed the OHSU I-Corp 5-week BIP Corps program.

Caregiven (alumnus)

• In our latest product update we launched our affiliate program with 4 amazing companies who support caregivers: Grief Coach, SilverBills, eFuneral, and Pinventory. While Caregiven does not advertise to our users, we do offer referral links to our affiliate partners who offer users a discount and provide Caregiven with lead generation revenue.
• Alaska’s Dementia Action Collaborative profiled Caregiven as a valuable resource to its stakeholder community in their recent newsletter.
• Caregiven was selected to participate in the APIS Health Angel program.
• Caregiven was 1 of 4 finalists from the Australian round of the Zurich Innovation Championship. Selected from an applicant pool of over 90 insuretech solutions, Caregiven presented to Zurich’s Australian executive team including the global head of their LifeWell initiative.
• We also surpassed 1,000 sign-ups in mid-February – that’s over one thousand families going through a caregiving event globally who are benefitting from our product.
• Founder and CEO Candice Smith was a featured panelist at OBI’s February Lunch & Learn on How Accelerators Can Help Boost Your Startup.
• Caregiven was acquired by Delta Dental of Iowa and its subsidiary Veratrus Health. Candice Smith, Caregiven’s founder and CEO, has joined the Delta Dental team! Read the press release here.

CytoImage

• CytoImage was featured in the OHSU Innovates 2022 Impact Report.

Endosound

• EndoSound is pleased to announce two new full-time employees. We are thrilled to have these two join our growing team.
  • Peter Hoffman has joined as Senior Product Development Engineer.  He will help to bring new and innovative ultrasound products to market. His 10+ years engineering experience ranges from robotics to medical devices with much of his time at Olympus developing novel biopsy tools for the lungs. He has authored 6 patent applications. Peter holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering and a minor in Business and Entrepreneurship from Oregon State University.
  • Patrick Hurley has joined as the Vice President of Marketing. Patrick comes with 13 years in product and market management in medical device, as well as several years as a life sciences consultant. Patrick has documented successes in each role as he continued to grow with responsibilities. He has helped build brand identity and established strong relationships with KOLs in the GI community. He holds a Ph.D. in biology, specializing in neuroscience from Wesleyan University.
• Winner of AGA Shark Tank and Innovation of the year. We had the opportunity to compete in the American Gastroenterology Association (AGA) Shark Tank for innovative technologies in early April and won!!
• We’ll be competing again with our innovative Endoscopic Ultrasound device at the end of May at the largest Gastroenterology professional conference in the world called Digestive Disease Week (DDW).
• We have also been honored with the Innovation of the Year from the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE). This distinction is granted to companies with products that show promise for advancing the field of GI endoscopy.
• Together, these awards demonstrate to the broader GI community that our mission to democratize EUS is taking shape. There could not be a better time to follow the EndoSound journey. View our LinkedIn page.
• We recently announced Scott Fraser as a new addition to our board.  Scott comes with a world of knowledge in startups, the Gastroenterology (GI) space, and the Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) market.
• In late May, we had our first ever booth at Digestive Disease Week (DDW).  This conference is the premier conference for the GI space, attracting doctors, industry professionals, and investors from all over the world.  We had tremendous response at the booth and as a result of several meetings with physicians and strategic partners.
• Some of the Endosound team, in partnership with physicians in Ecuador, showcased the Endosound Vision System (EVS) on Endoscopy on Air (EOA) on June 3rd.  The Global Annual Live Streaming Event on EOA had physicians from around the world educate and demonstrate their techniques in various endoscopic procedures to the 11,000 virtual attendees.  We were honored to sponsor a session with partner Dr. Carlos Robles Medranda at the Ecuadorian Institute of Digestive Disease.

Gamma Diagnostics

• Our podcast with Expert Dojo was released online.
• MedRxiv published our study of gamma prime fibrinogen in COVID-19 patients.
• David Farrell, Founder and CSO participated as a featured panelist at OBI’s February Lunch & Learn on How Accelerators Can Help Boost Your Startup.
• Gamma Diagnostics recently participated in the Expert Dojo international accelerator program.
• We are thrilled to announce the promotion of Jamie Noll, Pharm.D., B.S. Nutrition to Chief Scientific Officer for Gamma Diagnostics Inc., effective immediately. Jamie joined the Gamma Dx team late last year as a scientific and clinical advisor and in a very short time has helped establish key KOL relationships in the medical and clinical research community. She has had various roles and extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry last of which was as a Medical Science Liaison for Puma Biotechnology.
• “I have known Jamie for over 14 years and our professional and personal relationship has been forged through challenging projects and arduous decisions. Not only is she extremely talented in her field but she represents the highest standard in ethics and integrity. I feel honored and privileged she has decided to join us in the CSO capacity.” Ajay Nair, CEO Gamma Diagnostics Inc.
• “Dr. Noll is a fabulous addition to the Gamma Diagnostics team! Her industry experience and scientific expertise are critical assets that will help propel Gamma Diagnostics forward.” Dr. David Farrell, Founder, Scientific Advisor, Gamma Diagnostics Inc.
• Gamma Diagnostics presented at the Expert Dojo Investor Festival on April 7 in Los Angeles. Our new CSO, Dr. Jamie Noll, and Founder Dr. David Farrell presented. See event details here.
• We filed a new provisional patent: Provisional Patent Application in United States No. 63/268,605 ‘Use of γ’ fibrinogen as a Biomarker in the Detection of Covid-19 and Prognosis of Severe Disease’
• We filed an Emergency Use Authorization to the FDA entitled: “Gamma-prime fibrinogen ELISA”
• Gamma Diagnostics Inc. and OHSU have signed a licensing agreement that seeks to further develop and commercially promote the use of Gamma Prime Fibrinogen (GPF) as an inflammatory and clotting risk biomarker.
• High GPF levels have previously shown positive correlation with peripheral artery disease, heart failure and CVD deaths in the ARIC study. Dr. David Farrell (Founder and CSO) published an abstract at AHA 2021 showing COVID-19 patients can develop extraordinarily high levels of GPF.
• Gamma Diagnostics Inc. will now continue to invest in further clinical studies, regulatory submission, and commercialization activities to bring GPF as a biomarker to market.
• Gamma Diagnostics Inc. is proud to announce that Mr. Ajay Nair, currently President and CEO, will serve as Chairman of the Executive Board and transition the Chief Executive Officer role to Mr. Chris Venter, currently CFO of the Company, effective November 18th, 2022.

GenerX

• GenerX moved its headquarters from Santa Clara, CA into one of the brand news labs in the OBI in Portland on December 1, 2022.
• GenerX is a pharmaceutical development company, has moved its headquarters from California to the OBI. GenerX is engaged in the development, manufacturing, acquisition, licensing, and partnership of sterile injectable generic drug products for the U.S. and overseas markets. Their mission is to provide affordable generic medicines to patients through innovative solutions by leveraging our expertise and partnerships with world class FDA approved manufacturing.

Hemex Health

• Hemex Health pitched to Inflect Health in January 2022.
• Whitney Wilhardt has joined Hemex as PR and Marketing Specialist.
• We sent our first Gazelles to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.
• We’re scheduled to ship commercially to Bahrein, Oman, Kuwait and Algeria, and we are already selling to Lebanon and UAE (Dubai and Abu Dhabi).
• We’ve partnered with distributors in Savona, Italy, our first European location.
• Umut Gurkan, our Chief Scientist for Sickle Cell Disease, based at Case Western in Ohio, was elected into the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering’s College of Fellows for his continuing achievements in medical and biological engineering.
• Patti White, Co-founder and CEO, recently participated as a presenter in an Angel Oregon Bio educational seminar and was be a featured panelist in two of OBI’s Lunch & Learns on Women in Leadership. View the March event here and the June event here.
• We received the 2022 West Coast Consortium for Technology & Innovation in Pediatrics (CTIP) grant award for catalyzing pediatric innovation (CPI), which supports the development of pediatric innovation from ideation through commercialization. We plan to use this grant to help apply for US FDA clearance to bring our affordable POC sickle cell test to the US.
• We have two abstracts that were accepted for the 4th Global Congress on Sickle Cell Disease (June 16-18) in Paris.
  • “Point-of-care diagnostic for quantification of fetal haemoglobin (Hb F) levels in monitoring hydroxyurea therapy for children with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) in Ghana” has been accepted for a poster presentation.
  • “Evaluation of first microchip-based point-of-care device for diagnosis of Beta-Thalassemia in India” has been accepted for a poster presentation.
• Hemex Health announced a significant enhancement to their Gazelle™ Hb Variant test, which allows for more precise measurements of Hb F, also known as fetal hemoglobin. The increased accuracy could be useful for monitoring hydroxyurea therapy in point-of-care settings. Hemex will provide “over the air” updates with the Hb F enhancement that can be downloaded directly to existing Gazelle Readers. The improvement will ship with new systems.
• We are proud to announce the official launch of the Gazelle™ PathoCatch™ COVID-19 FIA test, a diagnostic solution for point-of-care testing, made in collaboration with @MylabSolutions. Read the full press release.
• We received National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) for continuing to support Hemex Health and Case School of Engineering at Case Western Reserve University with a $1.7M Phase II STTR follow up award for our “portable, affordable, quantitative microchip electrophoresis for hemoglobin A1C (diabetes) testing.”
• We launched our COVID-19 point-of-care diagnostic, Gazelle PathoCatch, in India on July 7 and plan to launch to our other distributors worldwide later this summer.
• CEO and Co-Founder Patti White was interviewed by International Finance Corporation (IFC).
• We received Portland Business Journal’s Global Impact Award as part of their Health Care of the Future Program. Patti White, CEO and co-founder, accepted the award during their ceremony held on August 18.
• Gazelle received Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) recommendation for sickle cell testing in India. Gazelle was one of three diagnostic platforms selected for this highly competitive and rigorous nod of approval.
• We are proud to announce during this Sickle Cell Awareness Month (September 2022) that Hemex has shipped 210,000 SCD tests to 25 countries.
• Hemex presented two posters at the Tropical Medicine Show (ASTMH) in Seattle.
  • The first discussed research on Gazelle’s ability to detect and differentiate P. knowlesi (a malaria species indigenous to SE Asia) from other malaria species.
  • The seconds was a study conducted in Ghana on Gazelle’s ability to measure fetal hemoglobin, which has possible applications for monitoring treatment for sickle cell disease.
• NIH Seed sponsored Hemex at the Redefining Early-Stage Investments (RESI) Conference, January 10, 2023, which connects startups with early-stage investors.
• The Zambian Network for Sickle Cell Disease in conjunction with the Zambian Ministry of Health launched Gazelle SCD testing devices in several district hospitals.
• Hemex presented a poster on our beta thalassemia test at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) in New Orleans in December 2022.

HTI

• Health Technology Innovations, Inc. was awarded a $1 million SBIR Phase II grant from the National Science Foundation to commercialize CryoDiscovery ™, a Cryo-EM Automation and Intelligence Platform for Drug Discovery.
• HTI is hiring AI/ML software development engineers, interns & post docs.
• Health Technology Innovations, Inc. (HTI) is excited to announce that Dr. Doug Kawahara is joining HTI as Senior Advisor for AI/ML in Drug Discovery. Dr. Kawahara brings extensive experience in drug discovery and development to HTI. He is currently President & CEO of Elex Biotech (Portland, OR), a company developing novel drugs for the treatment of arrhythmia and heart failure. Read full press release.
• HTI attended the 17th Annual Drug Discovery Chemistry event in San Diego on April 18-22, presenting a Poster session on CryoDiscovery™ its machine learning platform for cryo-EM image processing, and providing information on its cryo-EM Services offerings for drug discovery.
• HTI CTO,  Narasimha Kumar, presented a poster session virtually at The Astbury Conversation 2022, on April 25-26 on CryoDiscovery™: Public Data-based AI/ML model enhancements for Cryo-EM Image Analysis. The Astbury is one of Europe’s premier conferences on macromolecular research, including a keynote by cryo-EM Nobel Laureate Richard Henderson.
• HTI has signed master service agreements with IDEAYA Biosciences and ADRx for cryo-EM structure determination services to support their drug discovery efforts. IDEAYA is a synthetic lethality-focused precision medicine oncology company and ADRx is a biotechnology company with a unique approach to halting diseases of protein aggregation.
• Received Phase II matching grant award from Business Oregon.
• In collaboration with Oregon BIO, HTI attended the Bio International 2022 with great success.
• HTI presented CryoDiscovery™ and CryoFast™ at the Microscopy & Microanalysis 2022 and American Crystallographic Association 2022 conferences on July 29 – Aug  4 in Portland, Oregon
• HTI signed a service agreement with ADRx Pharma for Cryo-EM sample optimization and image analysis.
• Signed Master Service Agreement with ADRx and a Top Tier International Pharmaceutical company for Cryo-EM services.
• HTI is now offering its Cryo-EM services via Scientist.com, a leading “science as a service” e-commerce site for Life Sciences. This adds a second e-commerce sales channel beyond ScienceExchange.com, the world’s first online R&D marketplace to accelerate scientific discovery, of which HTI became a member last year.
• Set up collaboration with Salk Institute for Cryo-EM data sets sharing.
• Filed patent of CryoFAST™ architecture (CRYOGENIC ELECTRON MICROSCOPY FULLY AUTOMATED ACQUISITION FOR SINGLE PARTICLE TOMOGRAPHY).
• Signed Master Service Agreement with AstraZeneca for Cryo-EM single particle analysis.
• Delivered Cryo-EM 3D structure model with encouraging results for ADRx.

Izon

• Jared Lynch has been made Sales Director for the United States region as of October 2022.
• Anthony McNeil is now the West Coast Sales and Applications Scientist.
• Izon will complete our Gen 2 qEV column releases with all sized columns available after January 17, 2023. This includes qEV singles, originals, 1s, 2s, 10s, and 100s.
• Izon is quite pleased with the adoption of our version 2 of the Automatic Fraction Collector which was released in February 2022.
• We have several new product releases planned for 2023.
• We are excited for ISEV2023 in Seattle in May, where Izon will be a sponsor.

Keliomics

• Joined the OBI in October 2022. They moved into two of OBI’s new offices and one of the brand-new labs.
• Keliomics offers pharmacophenotyping for patients with solid tumors including breast, prostate, and certain types of metastatic cancer.
• Keliomics was one of the five winners of the Beaverton Startup Challenge 2023, winning $25,000.

Madorra

• We were selected for the inaugural class of Series P– a collaboration accelerator sponsored by Procter & Gamble Ventures and Plug and Play.
• We participated on a FemTech panel along with Convey Capital hosted by Stanford Biodesign.
• Holly graduated from the Ferolyn Fellowship program.
• CEO Holly Rockweiler was a presenter at a recent Angel Oregon Bio educational seminar.
• In February, Holly was featured as UCSF’s Rosenman Healthtech leader of the month.
• Madorra was featured on the Medsider podcast in March.
• We were selected out of a record-setting number of applicants to present at the McKinsey Early Stage Investor Conference in June.
• We were featured on a Washington University in St. Louis panel entitled: WashU Women Changing the Way We Live and Work.
• We were selected (for the second time!) as one of the showcase companies for the NIH SBIR Investor Initiatives program. The NIH will be sponsoring us to attend the AdvaMed conference in Boston, MA this fall.

NeuvaRx

• NeuvaRx joined the OBI in March 2022. NeuvaRx is preclinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of therapies and diagnostic tools for neurovascular disorders, including, but not limited to ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke and vascular dementia.
• NeuvaRx received an NIH phase I STTR award that started July 1.
• We also received a matching grant award from Oregon Business Development for the STTR award.

OmnEcoil Instruments

• OmnEcoil was mentioned in a May 2022 report entitled: “Global Biopsy Devices Pipeline Market Landscape Report 2021: Stage of Development, Segment, Regulatory Path, Estimated Approval Date, Ongoing Clinical Trial – ResearchAndMarkets.com.” You can read the press release here.

PDX Pharmaceuticals

• PDX Pharmaceuticals joined the OBI in February 2022. PDX Pharmaceuticals is an IND-enabling stage biopharmaceutical company bringing complementary biological pathways together to achieve synergistic clinical benefits. Their patented mesoporous silica-based nanoparticle platform (Pdx-NP) has been optimized to co-deliver multiple classes of therapeutics (e.g., siRNA, small molecule drugs, antibodies, immunostimulants) to ensure that they reach the target cells at the same time to fully realize their synergy. It can deliver cargos to both cancer and immune cells. Their current focus is to generate effective anti-tumor immune response through profound CD8+ anti-tumor T cell production.
• We have a new publication in Nature Communications.
  • Moataz Reda, Worapol Ngamcherdtrakul, Molly A Nelson, Natnaree Siriwon, Ruijie Wang, Husam Y Zaidan, Daniel S Bejan, Sherif Reda, Ngoc Ha Hoang, Noah A Crumrine, Justin PC Rehwaldt, Akash Bindal, Gordon B Mills, Joe W Gray, Wassana Yantasee. Development of a nanoparticle-based immunotherapy targeting PD-L1 and PLK1 for lung cancer treatment. Nature communications. 13(1), 1-11, 2022.
• Also we won a matching grant for phase II small business innovative research (SBIR) from Business Oregon this year. The award (USD 100,000) will be used for our IP protection, financing a new facility, and fundraising activities.
• PDX Pharma was recognized by Portland Business Journal and received two philanthropic awards on October 27.
  • 2022 Innovation in Philanthropy award (PDX Pharmaceuticals in partnership with OHSU).
  • Top 10 philanthropic small companies (below $10M in revenue).
• These awards recognized our commitment, through donation and volunteer work, to support education and training in cancer research and nanotechnology.
• PDX Pharmaceuticals expanded within the OBI to an additional lab, one of the brand-new labs recently opened in Suite 270.
• PDX Pharma’s ARAC-02 drug candidate has been selected into the Nanotechnology Characterization Lab (NCL)’s collaboration and characterization program. ARAC-02 targets PD-L1, PLK1, and TLR9 for the treatment of lung cancer. More information here.

ProMedix

• Founders Dr. David Sheridan and Dr. Matthew Hansen co-authored a journal article in Frontiers in Medicine, entitled “Point-Of-Care Capillary Refill Technology Improves Accuracy of Peripheral Perfusion Assessment.”
• We are really excited to announce that Promedix has been selected into the highly competitive Creative Destruction Labs–Healthcare/Biomed Engineering Stream based out of Vancouver BC. This brings together investors, mentors, and advisors across all aspects of the product life cycle to accelerate commercialization.
• ProMedix was named as a semi-finalist for the Bend Venture Conference.
• ProMedix currently has an open round for funding and would love to discuss further with any interested parties at OBI or beyond. Please email Scott Filer, CEO: scott_filer@promedixinc.com.
• ProMedix was recently selected from a competitive group of startups for the Creative Destruction Lab‘s healthcare cohort. This will help to solidify a go-to-market strategy for our technology as well as expand to a large network of healthcare innovators.
• ProMedix has been announced as a finalist for the Seattle Angel Conference. In addition it is being highlighted as stage presenting startup company at the large Octane MedTech Innovation Forum in Southern California.
• We also brought onboard Robert Jenks, MBA as our Acting CFO. Bob is a former Managing Director for GE Equity.
• ProMedix was featured in the OHSU Innovates 2022 Impact Report.

Qtonics

• Qtonics moved within the OBI from a co-working desk space to one of our newly built offices.

Refeyn

• Launched a new product line specifically designed for gene therapy applications, called the SamuxMP. The Refeyn SamuxMP is a mass photometer optimized for adeno-associated virus (AAV) characterization and is an essential analytical tool for laboratories working with AAVs. The SamuxMP precisely measures the empty/full capsid ratio for AAVs of any serotype. SamuxMP mass photometry measurements are rapid and require very little sample.
• Brenda Watt has been promoted to Customer Success Manager in the Portland office, and Ritu is a new member of the Portland team.
• Refeyn closed Series B funding round, led by Northpond Ventures! Read their press release here.

Rewire Neuro

• Received a Business Oregon grant award to develop a marketing strategy and hire additional staff for their AI-as-a-service platform in diagnostics and analysis.
• Rewire Neuro was a finalist in Pitch Oregon by TiE Oregon, in the Life Science category.
• John Harkness, President and CEO, was a presenter in an Angel Oregon Bio educational seminar.
• Rewire attended BIO International as part of the Oregon Pavilion and pitched at the Startup Stadium as a finalist, gaining recognition, feedback, and interest from a large group of investors and potential partners from around the world.
• Rewire Neuro, Inc., makers of Pipsqueak Pro – the revolutionary AI image analysis platform for biological researchers, announces their partner platform integration with eLabNext, part of Eppendorf Group, and premier Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN) platform provider.
• Rewire will be integrating our image analysis software into eLabNext’s electronic lab notebook, which will enable users to seamlessly move between conducting their image analysis and their collaborative data organizational environment, providing deeper analysis and insights for the entire lab.
• Pipsqueak Pro was born from the lab–developed by scientists to rapidly speed up manual image analysis, cellular quantification, and multi-channel (colocalization) analysis for both image and video media. The platform uses a patented machine learning system to improve your ROI predictions with minimal user input. Our AutoML™ process will customize the AI’s detection capabilities to your needs and improve your lab’s analysis workflow.
• Rewire Neuro and Neurescence are partnering to enhance fluorescence calcium imaging of the nervous system with cutting edge neuronal segmentation and analysis capability.
  • Neurescence Inc. (Toronto, Canada), the manufacturer of the Multiscopes^TM, and Rewire Neuro, Inc. (Portland, Oregon), a provider of artificial intelligence software development services (“AI-a-a-S”) announced their strategic development partnership today. With the aim to optimize the automated analysis workflow for neuroscientists, this technology integration utilizes deep learning to rapidly improve detection and quantification of neuronal activity while reducing the processing time of data-dense brain recordings. Videos that would previously take 2 weeks to be processed now result in neuronal detection in 30 minutes with double the accuracy compared to the existing automated neuronal segmentation methods in the market.

RxHomeTest

• RxHomeTest pitched to Inflect Health in January, 2022.

Senju Pharmaceuticals

• Dr. Thomas R. Shearer discovered that the thinning of the retinal ganglion cell layer (GCL) occurs in patients with branch retinal artery occlusion (BRAO) as well as in central retinal artery occlusion (CRAO), recently published in PLosOne.
• We welcomed Takatoshi Uchida from Japan in 2022.

Sirona Dx

• In March 2022, Sirona Dx announced a co-marketing agreement with Ultivue for multiplexed tissue biomarker solutions.
• Sirona Dx announced a partnership with Scailyte for AI driven end-point specific single cell analysis in July 2022.

Sonivate Medical

• Sonivate Medical, Inc. has received funding as part of an SBIR Program from the US Air Force for a Phase I ($74,886).  It is a 90-day Phase I to be completed by January 27, 2023.  This Phase I is to develop the requirements for an Ultra-High Frequency Linear Probe for clinical applications in MSK, ophthalmology and clinical ultrasound views < 3 cm.
• In addition, Sonivate will secure an Air Force clinician to be PI for the clinical research in the Phase II application.

Sparrow Pharmaceuticals (alumnus)

• Sparrow Pharmaceuticals received ethics committee and regulatory authority go-ahead for three Phase 2 clinical trials, in patients with Cushing syndrome, autonomous cortisol secretion, and polymyalgia rheumatica.
• Dr. David Katz was selected to give oral presentations on new clinical pharmacology and non-clinical study results at three prestigious conferences in May-June: European Congress of Endocrinology in Milan, European League Against Rheumatism in Copenhagen, and Endocrine Society in Atlanta.
• Sparrow has dosed the 1st patient in a phase 2 clinical trial of SPI-62 with prednisolone for polymyalgia rheumatica. Read press release here.
• Congratulations to Sparrow CSO and Founder, David Katz, for the honor of being a PharmaVoice 100! David was recognized for his entrepreneurial spirit and pursuit of finding a treatment for disorders due to steroid excess using scientific prowess and an artist’s vision. Read Dr. Katz’ interview.

StoneStable

• CSO and Founder Ken Stedman was interviewed by a local KATU reporter about the new SARS CoV-2 subvariant, which was then picked up and shown on Good Morning America.
• StoneStable, Inc. moved in to their new lab space in Suite 130A at the OBI.
• StoneStable, Inc. was one of the finalists for the Angel Oregon Life & Bio (AOBIO) investment. See press release.
• Ken Stedman and Dan Snyder from StoneStable were at the BIO meeting in San Diego and made a number of connections with international pharmaceutical companies, large and small.
• We are proud to announce that StoneStable, Inc. has been accepted into the Creative Destruction Lab program in the International Advanced Therapies Track.

SUTUREGARD Medical

• SUTUREGARD Medical, Inc. received the honor of being chosen by MedTech Innovator for the MedTech Innovator Road Show.  In their words, ”MedTech Innovator is the largest and highest performing accelerator of medical technology in the world and the medtech industry’s premiere showcase and competition for innovative medical device, digital health and diagnostic companies.”
• We will be pitching April 14 and hope to leverage our participation into favorable business development pathways.
• We received a lot of attention at trade shows including the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons in Austin Texas where we presented our 3rd study showing ~80% reduction in postoperative wound complications after repair of ankle fractures.
• We have enjoyed record sales in Q1 2022.
• Dr Alton Johnson of University of Michigan Podiatry presented at the Society for Advanced Wound Care (SAWC) last month in Phoenix on HEMIGARD closure of Stage 4 (bone involved) heel wounds.  He won first place in the Practice Innovation category for this work.  HEMIGARD is allowing surgeons to close wounds that have not been able to be closed with normal suture materials.  Normal suture does not work well on soft heel skin which does not resist tearing when under tension.  HEMIGARD corrects this problem.
• The most recent episode (Season 4 – Episode 3 entitled “A Smell from Hell”) of “My Feet are Killing Me” featured HEMIGARD being used by “Dr. Brad” to close a very tough plantar wound.  It does have graphic content including live surgery footage.  The patient in question can hardly walk due to masses of callus on the ball of her foot – the surgical excision leaves a large wound that is difficult to close, and Dr. Brad uses HEMIGARD to help close the defect.  The patient has an excellent result and is ecstatic! “My Feet Are Killing Me” A Smell from Hell (TV Episode 2022) – IMDb.
• Our biggest recent win had almost nothing to do with us.  A general surgeon at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland got a hold of our wound closure device HEMIGARD, loved it, got it approved locally and then nationally and now we have received orders from multiple Kaiser clinical facilities. This surgeon is not an advisor or consultant to us, and just liked what HEMIGARD was doing for her wound closure results.
• We were one of 28 medical device startup companies selected from over 1000 worldwide applicants for the MedTech Innovator Accelerator 2022 program.  This is wrapping up soon at AdvaMed in Boston at the end of the month and there are several competitions in play.
• One is the one minute video competition.  Please enjoy (and “like” on LinkedIn) our story of how Dr. Brad used HEMIGARD to stop Shantell’s feet from killing her!
• SUTUREGARD wins American Diabetes Association 2022 Showcase Innovation Award.  We were recently (November 4, 2022) honored to receive this award, having successfully competed with 160 other companies from the USA and beyond.  Above we are receiving the award presented by Dr. Robert Gabbay, the Chief Medical Officer of the ADA (2^nd from L).  The ADA heard our message about how our HEMIGARD product has dramatically improved surgical outcomes for diabetic amputation patients.
• As you may know, many initial amputations do not heal on these patients who almost always have vascular disease and neuropathy, and often require more morbid above or below knee amputations with high risk of systemic complications including mortality.  HEMIGARD reduced need for further amputation by 89% by preventing healing complications with the initial amputation.  This study of 80 patients is valid real-world evidence that resonated with the ADA judges.
• We look forward to bringing HEMIGARD to all those who do provide surgical care for diabetics with the goal of improving their surgical outcomes!

Synergic Medical Technologies

• Synergic was a finalist in the 2022 Oregon Technology Awards in the Pre-Revenue category.
• Synergic is proud to announce that we have received breakthrough device designation from the FDA! This is a big day for us in our mission of bringing solutions to the Parkinson’s community. We appreciate this special recognition and support of the FDA in our on-going development of the VT Touch.

Thaena

• Thaena held its annual 2022 Thaena Microbiome Symposium in a virtual format. It focused on the rise of probiotics: the roles they play in various organ systems, our health, and clinical applications.
• View recordings from the symposium here.

Trace Biosciences

• Trace Biosciences (formerly Inherent Targeting) was selected as a finalist for the Angel Oregon Life & Bio (AOBIO) investment competition through OEN, competing for a ~$300k investment, with the winner announced at the Finale event on May 26th at Amaterra Winery in Portland. See press release.
• We were awarded an SBIR matching grant from Business Oregon for ~$50k to complete in vitro testing and regulatory planning of our lead contrast agent towards clinical translation.
• We were selected to participate in the Creative Destruction Lab Biomedical Engineering track taking place out of Vancouver WA.
• We received an SBIR matching grant from Business Oregon to complete some additional in vitro toxicology testing and regulatory work for our Phase I NSF STTR project.
• We received a phase I SBIR award from the NINDS at the NIH to develop our imaging agents for the application of intraoperative nerve damage assessment to improve nerve repair surgery.
• This fall, Trace Biosciences moved within the OBI to one of the new offices and a brand-new lab.

Veana Therapeutics

• Received a Business Oregon grant to help provide funding toward commercialization for its VT-101 oral medication for oncology patients.
• Founder and CEO Emmanuel Akporiaye, PhD, recently presented at an Angel Oregon Bio educational seminar.
• Their ongoing clinical trial for the study of Alpha-TEA and trastuzumab for the treatment of refractory HER2+ metastatic breast cancer continues at the University of Washington/Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center.
• Participated in the Research in Your Back Yard panel at the OBI in May.
• Recently enrolled a third patient in their clinical trial at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle and will soon be opening a second trial site at Providence Cancer Center, Portland.

VIR Biotechnology

• VIR Biotechnology graduated from the OBI February 28, 2022, after joining the incubator in 2015 as TomegaVax, an OHSU spinoff that is pursuing an HIV vaccine. VIR Biotechnology has had many successes throughout their time at the Oregon Bioscience Incubator, including initiating their Phase 1 clinical trial of VIR-1111, an investigational human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) T cell vaccine.
• Upon graduation, VIR Biotechnology has relocated their lab and office from OTRADI’s incubator in the Willamette Wharf building on Portland’s South Waterfront, to the Riverside Centre business park just down the street from the incubator.

Virogenomics BioDevelopment

• VBD was awarded its third year of funding on our SBIR Phase 2B grant focused on manufacture and toxicology of DRQ, our therapeutic for multiple sclerosis.
• After 20 years with Virogenomics and then with VBD, Jeff King has decided to step-down as CEO of VBD.  He remains part of VBD’s Board of Directors. Renee Shirley will become CEO of VBD starting in 2023.

VitalFlo

• VitalFlo officially joined the OBI in October 2022, moving into one of the newly built offices.
• VitalFlo helps leading clinicians and researchers improve patient outcomes and advance lung health by providing comprehensive respiratory data, analysis and care.
• VitalFlo Announces Public Investment Campaign to Help Doctors Measure, Monitor, and Predict Patient’s Lung Health
  • “Do you think asthma and COPD should be treated preventatively instead of with trips to the ER? So does VitalFlo,” says Luke Marshall, PhD, VitalFlo Founder and CEO.
  • The team at VitalFlo has built a spirometry platform to help patients and their primary care doctors proactively manage their asthma, COPD, and other respiratory concerns.
• VitalFlo has officially launched its Wefunder campaign. With Wefunder, everyone, regardless of background, connections, or income, will finally be able to invest in VitalFlo and be a critical part of their future success. Read More.
• VitalFlo was one of the finalists in the Impact category at Bend Venture Conference.

Congratulations to all of you on your hard work and successful endeavors! You’re doing great things for healthcare.

Business Oregon SBMA Grant

Do you have or know of a small business affected by COVID-19? Small businesses may be eligible for one of Oregon’s Small Business and Microenterprise Grant Assistance awards. This program is funded by CARES Act funding for businesses who meet eligibility requirements.

For more information, see Business Oregon’s SBMA Program page.

Note: Applications open on January 23 at 8 a.m. and are due at 5 p.m. on January 27, 2023.

Save the Date for OTRADI’s 15th Anniversary Celebration

Mark your calendars to come out and help us celebrate our 15th anniversary! More information to come, so stay tuned.

Thank You for Your Continued Support of our Programs

OBI is gearing up for some excellent free entrepreneurial programming this year. We have monthly Lunch & Learns on all kinds of interesting topics geared toward the life science community, monthly Happy Hour networking, a robust mentoring & advising program, and more. Each of these programs has sponsorship opportunities available.

To help support our programming with a tax-deductible sponsorship, please take a look at our Program Sponsorship Kit and contact Rene Miller for sponsorship or questions.

Upcoming OBI Events

OBI Virtual Lunch & Learn:
Diversity in Clinical Trials
January 18, 2023
12:00-1:00 PM
Register here

Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health Happy Hour
February 2, 2023
5:30-7:00 PM
Oregon Bioscience Incubator, Portland
Tickets are limited – get yours now!

OBI Virtual Lunch & Learn:
Business Oregon’s Commercialization Gap Fund
and SBIR Overview
February 28, 2023
12:00-1:00 PM
Save the date!

Other Community Events

PDX Women in Tech Presents:
January Happy Hour & Town Hall
January 17, 2023
5:30-7:30 PM
Virtual
Register here

UW WE-REACH Biomedical Entrepreneurship
Fireside Chat Series
January 19, 26, February 2, and 9, 2023
2:00-3:00 PM
Virtual
Register here

Lunch & Learn: What Every MedTech Startup Leader
Needs to Know About Attempting a Commercial Launch
January 25, 2023
12:00-1:30 PM
Virtual
Register here

Built Oregon Presents
PitchBlack 2023
February 7, 2023
6:30 PM
The Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, Beaverton
Tickets on sale now

Happy Holidays from Oregon Bioscience Incubator!

To observe the holidays and spend time with our families, OBI/OTRADI will be closed December 23-January 2. We wish you all a joyful holiday season and a happy start to 2023!

Rene Miller Promoted to OBI Associate Director

Following the departure of Hazel Valdez, Rene Miller has been promoted to the Associate Director position. Rene first joined the Oregon Bioscience Incubator/OTRADI in January 2020. As Associate Director, Rene recruits and helps select new client companies to join the incubator, implements and markets community and client programs and events, leads DEI initiatives, and manages communications and social media outreach.

Rene holds Bachelor of Science degrees in Business from Portland State University and Clinical Laboratory Science from Oregon Health & Science University/Oregon Institute of Technology, as well as a Master of Science in Nutrition from University of Western States. Her background includes clinical laboratory experience and small business ownership. As a longtime Chamber of Commerce participant, she also brought her interest in supporting and encouraging business growth and development to the OBI.

Welcome GenerX to the OBI

GenerX, a pharmaceutical development company, has moved its headquarters from California to the OBI. GenerX is engaged in the development, manufacturing, acquisition, licensing, and partnership of sterile injectable generic drug products for the U.S. and overseas markets. Their mission is to provide affordable generic medicines to patients through innovative solutions by leveraging our expertise and partnerships with world class FDA approved manufacturing facilities.

GenerX moved into one of our brand new labs on December 1, and we are thrilled to have them join us!

Client Company Wins

Keliomics

• Keliomics was one of the five winners of the Beaverton Startup Challenge 2023, winning $25,000.

Synergic Medical Technologies

• Synergic is proud to announce that we have received breakthrough device designation from the FDA! This is a big day for us in our mission of bringing solutions to the Parkinson’s community. We appreciate this special recognition and support of the FDA in our on-going development of the VT Touch.

Gamma Diagnostics

• Gamma Diagnostics Inc. is proud to announce that Mr. Ajay Nair, currently President and CEO, will serve as Chairman of the Executive Board and transition the Chief Executive Officer role to Mr. Chris Venter, currently CFO of the Company, effective November 18th, 2022.

Suturegard Medical

• SUTUREGARD wins American Diabetes Association 2022 Showcase Innovation Award.  We were recently (November 4, 2022) honored to receive this award, having successfully competed with 160 other companies from the USA and beyond.  Above we are receiving the award presented by Dr. Robert Gabbay, the Chief Medical Officer of the ADA (2^nd from L).  The ADA heard our message about how our HEMIGARD product has dramatically improved surgical outcomes for diabetic amputation patients.
• As you may know, many initial amputations do not heal on these patients who almost always have vascular disease and neuropathy, and often require more morbid above or below knee amputations with high risk of systemic complications including mortality.  HEMIGARD reduced need for further amputation by 89% by preventing healing complications with the initial amputation.  This study of 80 patients is valid real world evidence that resonated with the ADA judges.
• We look forward to bringing HEMIGARD to all those who do provide surgical care for diabetics with the goal of improving their surgical outcomes!

GenerX

• GenerX moved its headquarters from Santa Clara, CA into the OBI in Portland on December 1.

StoneStable

• StoneStable is hiring a part-time technician. See their job description here.

Congratulations on all of your achievements!

VertueLab’s Federal Funding News

VertueLab’s December newsletter is chock full of federal funding opportunities and resources, such as:

• Department of Energy (DOE)
• National Science Foundation (NSF)
• National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
• Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
• Department of Defense (DoD)

As one of Oregon’s signature research centers (alongside OTRADI and ONAMI), VertueLab is always there to help Oregon entrepreneurs with helpful information and free advice.

Partner Spotlight: Northwest Tenant Group

Stanford Scriven is the founder and principal of Northwest Tenant Group, Portland’s only independent, conflict-free real estate firm. His approach is that of a “Chief Real Estate Officer” for Northwest companies who need to utilize real estate without the headache. He has proudly managed real estate projects for over 100 companies ranging from startups to the Fortune 150. Learn more about Northwest Tenant Group’s services at www.nwtenantgroup.com.

OBI events

Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health Happy Hour
January 5, 2023
5:30-7:00 PM
Marriott Courtyard City Center
Register here – tickets are going fast!

Other community partner events

OEN Pub Talk: Exit Strategies Realized… Now What?
December 14, 2022
5:15-7:30 PM
Holcene
Get tickets here

PDX Women in Tech Winter Soiree & Awards Ceremony
December 15, 2022
5:00-7:00 PM
In-person or virtual
Register here

OBI client company wins

PDX Pharmaceuticals

• PDX Pharma was recognized by Portland Business Journal and received two philanthropic awards on October 27.
  • 2022 Innovation in Philanthropy award (PDX Pharmaceuticals in partnership with OHSU)
  • Top 10 philanthropic small companies (below $10M in revenue)
• These awards recognized our commitment, through donation and volunteer work, to support education and training in cancer research and nanotechnology.

VitalFlo

• VitalFlo Announces Public Investment Campaign to Help Doctors Measure, Monitor, and Predict Patient’s Lung Health
  • “Do you think asthma and COPD should be treated preventatively instead of with trips to the ER? So does VitalFlo,” says Luke Marshall, PhD, VitalFlo Founder and CEO.
  • The team at VitalFlo has built a spirometry platform to help patients and their primary care doctors proactively manage their asthma, COPD, and other respiratory concerns.
• VitalFlo has officially launched its Wefunder campaign. With Wefunder, everyone, regardless of background, connections, or income, will finally be able to invest in VitalFlo and be a critical part of their future success. Read More
• VitalFlo was one of the finalists in the Impact category at Bend Venture Conference.

Trace Biosciences

• We were selected to participate in the Creative Destruction Lab Biomedical Engineering track taking place out of Vancouver WA.
• We received an SBIR matching grant from Business Oregon to complete some additional in vitro toxicology testing and regulatory work for our Phase I NSF STTR project.
• We received a phase I SBIR award from the NINDS at the NIH to develop our imaging agents for the application of intraoperative nerve damage assessment to improve nerve repair surgery.

ProMedix

• ProMedix currently has an open round for funding and would love to discuss further with any interested parties at OBI or beyond. Please email Scott Filer, CEO: scott_filer@promedixinc.com
• ProMedix was recently selected from a competitive group of startups for the Creative Destruction Lab‘s healthcare cohort. This will help to solidify a go-to-market strategy for our technology as well as expand to a large network of healthcare innovators.
• ProMedix has been announced as a finalist for the Seattle Angel Conference. In addition it is being highlighted as stage presenting startup company at the large Octane MedTech Innovation Forum in Southern California.
• We also brought onboard Robert Jenks, MBA as our Acting CFO. Bob is a former Managing Director for GE Equity.
• ProMedix was featured in the OHSU Innovates 2022 Impact Report.

Sonivate Medical

• Sonivate Medical, Inc. has received funding as part of an SBIR Program from the US Air Force for a Phase I ($74,886).  It is a 90-day Phase I to be completed by January 27, 2023.  This Phase I is to develop the requirements for an Ultra-High Frequency Linear Probe for clinical applications in MSK, ophthalmology and clinical ultrasound views < 3 cm.
• In addition, Sonivate will secure an Air Force clinician to be PI for the clinical research in the Phase II application.

CANX

• CANX, LLC founder Kerry Masterson successfully completed the OHSU I-Corp 5-week BIP Corps program.

Hemex Health

• Hemex presented two posters at the Tropical Medicine Show (ASTMH) in Seattle.
  • The first discussed research on Gazelle’s ability to detect and differentiate P. knowlesi (a malaria species indigenous to SE Asia) from other malaria species.
  • The seconds was a study conducted in Ghana on Gazelle’s ability to measure fetal hemoglobin, which has possible applications for monitoring treatment for sickle cell disease.

Rewire Neuro

• Rewire Neuro and Neurescence are partnering to enhance fluorescence calcium imaging of the nervous system with cutting edge neuronal segmentation and analysis capability.
  • Neurescence Inc. (Toronto, Canada), the manufacturer of the Multiscopes^TM, and Rewire Neuro, Inc. (Portland, Oregon), a provider of artificial intelligence software development services (“AI-a-a-S”) announced their strategic development partnership today. With the aim to optimize the automated analysis workflow for neuroscientists, this technology integration utilizes deep learning to rapidly improve detection and quantification of neuronal activity while reducing the processing time of data-dense brain recordings. Videos that would previously take 2 weeks to be processed now result in neuronal detection in 30 minutes with double the accuracy compared to the existing automated neuronal segmentation methods in the market.

CytoImage

• CytoImage was featured in the OHSU Innovates 2022 Impact Report.

Caregiven (alumnus)

• Caregiven was acquired by Delta Dental of Iowa and its subsidiary Veratrus Health. Candice Smith, Caregiven’s founder and CEO, has joined the Delta Dental team!
• Read the press release here.

Congratulations on all of your achievements!

Wishing Hazel Valdez the best in her new role

OBI’s Associate Director, Hazel Valdez, has accepted a position as Executive Director for PDXWIT and will be leaving OBI on November 18, 2022.

While at OBI, Hazel has worked to formalize OBI’s selection process, injected Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work into daily operations, built a job board, completed a digital health project initiative, and led the organization’s diversify funding efforts. Hazel has always communicated that she wanted to become an Executive Director herself, so we are ecstatic to see her achieve this goal.

While we are saddened to see her go, we are grateful for all the work she has done and the friendships we have formed. We wish her congratulations on this achievement and look forward to working with her as a partner in this great community.

CBRE report: Life science market normalizes in Q3 after record-setting 2021

Executive Summary

• U.S. life sciences employment increased by 5.4% year-over-year in Q3 2022. While year-over-year growth in the Biotech R&D sector remained high at 11%, it began to plateau in Q3 with little change between July and August.
• Life sciences venture capital funding decreased by 29% quarter-over-quarter to $4.1 billion in Q3, in line with pre-pandemic levels.
• The overall lab vacancy rate increased by 30 basis points (bps) quarter-over-quarter to 5.3% in Q3, largely due to new supply totaling 2.1 million sq. ft. outpacing absorption of 363,047 sq. ft.
• The average lab asking rent of the top 12 U.S. markets increased by 6.8% quarter-over-quarter to $60.28 per sq. ft. NNN.
• Under-construction lab space increased by 4.9 million sq. ft. quarter-over-quarter to 37.4 million sq. ft., 88% of which was being built on a speculative basis and 26.3% preleased.
• Download the report PDF here.

For more information, contact Ajay Malhotra, Ajay.Malhotra@cbre.com or Kristin Hammond, Kristin.Hammond@cbre.com at CBRE Portland.

Pitch Oregon applications due Nov. 15

PITCH OREGON is entering another year, showcasing the talent and innovation of Pacific Northwest founders. Each year, Pitch Oregon brings together entrepreneurs, investors, and mentors from the region, creating a collaborative and dynamic environment for launching startups on their growth journeys.

Winners of the growth categories for Pitch Oregon 2023 will receive investment through a special purpose vehicle (SPV). A cash prize will be awarded to the Early-Stage winner.

Last year, $875K was invested in six companies and we’re expecting approximately the same again in 2023!

WHO CAN APPLY:  Pitch Oregon will have 3 Growth categories and one Early-Stage category. Applicants will self-select which category to apply for. To be eligible for one of the Growth categories, startups must have raised more than $250,000 in total investment or have more than $250,000 in revenue. Pitch Oregon categories include:

• Cleantech / Sustainability (growth)
• Life science (growth)
• Software / Technology (growth)
• Early Stage (industry agnostic)

Deadline to apply is November 15.
More information here.

OHSU Innovates 2022 Impact Report

The OHSU Innovates 2022 Impact Report provides a snapshot of the successes that come from innovative science, academic-industry collaborations and an infrastructure that stewards ideas to impact. You’ll find numbers that show the impact of funding great ideas, and you’ll see profiles of some of the OHSU innovators and start-ups that demonstrate the change that innovation can bring.  The report also shares OHSU services and resources that aim to help build a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem.

A special shoutout to OBI client companies ProMedix, who is featured on pages 8 and 14; and CytoImage, whose profile appears on page 13 of the report.

UC Davis is hosting NIH course

NIH Course in Neurotherapeutics Discovery and Development for Academic Scientists

Applications are now being accepted for the 2023 session of the Training in Neurotherapeutics Discovery and Development for Academic Scientists Course, taking place March 14 -17, 2023 at UC Davis in Davis, CA. The deadline to apply is December 5, 2022.

This NIH-sponsored short course focuses on fundamentals of drug discovery and development of novel neurotherapeutics. It offers a mix of didactic lectures, workshops, round robins, and one-on-one academic/pharma mentorship, with time for networking and in-person collaboration. Led by Course Directors Michael Rogawski, MD, PhD, and Barbara Slusher, PhD, MAS, the course is taught by a faculty of leading Pharma industry and academic drug discovery professionals. Participants will have ongoing access to senior faculty who will assist them to achieve success in their individual drug development projects.

The 2023 session will be held in person at UC Davis in Davis, CA. There is no cost to apply, and for successful applicants, tuition, travel, and lodging are fully covered.  Apply here by December 5.

OBI events

Hybrid Lunch & Learn: Financial Success
Through Accounting Best Practices
November 16, 2022
12:00-1:00 PM
OBI or Virtual Option
Register here

Hybrid Lunch & Learn:
Commercial Real Estate Q&A
December 7, 2022
12:00-1:00 PM
OBI or Virtual Option
SAVE THE DATE – registration coming soon

Other community partner events

Voices of Equity: Backlash & Social Movements
November 11, 2022
9:00-9:30 AM
Register here

Biotech Summit 2022 + Bio on the Vine
November 15, 2022
2:00-8:00 PM
Knight Cancer Research Building – Portland
Purchase tickets here

-and-

Bio in the Valley 2022
December 1, 2022
5:00-8:00 PM
Phil and Penny Knight Campus for
Accelerating Scientific Impact – Eugene
Purchase tickets here

Inclusion That Moves You
December 7, 2022
12:00-1:15 PM
Register here

Welcoming Another New Client Company to OBI!

CANX LLC is developing therapeutics to address iron-related health conditions such as iron overload disease and certain forms of cancer which depend on iron for their growth.

Welcome to the Willamette Wharf building and our OBI client company community!

OBI Client Company Wins

Rewire Neuro

• Rewire Neuro, Inc., makers of Pipsqueak Pro – the revolutionary AI image analysis platform for biological researchers, announces their partner platform integration with eLabNext, part of Eppendorf Group, and premier Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN) platform provider.
• Rewire will be integrating our image analysis software into eLabNext’s electronic lab notebook, which will enable users to seamlessly move between conducting their image analysis and their collaborative data organizational environment, providing deeper analysis and insights for the entire lab.
• Pipsqueak Pro was born from the lab–developed by scientists to rapidly speed up manual image analysis, cellular quantification, and multi-channel (colocalization) analysis for both image and video media. The platform uses a patented machine learning system to improve your ROI predictions with minimal user input. Our AutoML™ process will customize the AI’s detection capabilities to your needs and improve your lab’s analysis workflow.

VitalFlo

• VitalFlo is one of the finalists in the Impact category at Bend Venture Conference!

PDX Pharmaceuticals

• We have a new publication in Nature Communications.
• Moataz Reda, Worapol Ngamcherdtrakul, Molly A Nelson, Natnaree Siriwon, Ruijie Wang, Husam Y Zaidan, Daniel S Bejan, Sherif Reda, Ngoc Ha Hoang, Noah A Crumrine, Justin PC Rehwaldt, Akash Bindal, Gordon B Mills, Joe W Gray, Wassana Yantasee. Development of a nanoparticle-based immunotherapy targeting PD-L1 and PLK1 for lung cancer treatment. Nature communications. 13(1), 1-11, 2022
• Also we won a matching grant for phase II small business innovative research (SBIR) from Business Oregon this year. The award (USD 100,000) will be used for our IP protection, financing a new facility, and fundraising activities.

StoneStable

• We are proud to announce that StoneStable, Inc. has been accepted into the Creative Destruction Lab program in the International Advanced Therapies Track.

HTI

• Signed Master Service Agreement with ADRx and a Top Tier International Pharmaceutical company for Cryo-EM services.
• HTI is now offering its Cryo-EM services via Scientist.com, a leading “science as a service” e-commerce site for Life Sciences. This adds a second e-commerce sales channel beyond ScienceExchange.com, the world’s first online R&D marketplace to accelerate scientific discovery, of which HTI became a member last year.
• Set up collaboration with Salk Institute for Cryo-EM data sets sharing.
• Filed patent of CryoFAST™ architecture (CRYOGENIC ELECTRON MICROSCOPY FULLY AUTOMATED ACQUISITION FOR SINGLE PARTICLE TOMOGRAPHY).

Hemex Health

• We are proud to announce during this Sickle Cell Awareness Month (September 2022) that Hemex has shipped 210,000 SCD tests to 25 countries.

SUTUREGARD Medical

• We were one of 28 medical device startup companies selected from over 1000 worldwide applicants for the MedTech Innovator Accelerator 2022 program.  This is wrapping up soon at AdvaMed in Boston at the end of the month and there are several competitions in play.
• One is the one minute video competition.  Please enjoy (and “like” on LinkedIn) our story of how Dr. Brad used HEMIGARD to stop Shantell’s feet from killing her!

Promedix

• Promedix was selected from a competitive pool of applicant companies to participate in the Creative Destruction Labs Heath Tech cohort based out of Vancouver BC. This brings together investors, mentors, and advisors across all aspects of the product life cycle to accelerate commercialization.
• ProMedix was named as a semi-finalist for both the Seattle Angel Conference and Bend Venture Conference.
• We have also been invited to pitch the stage at the Octane Conference this month in Irvine.

OBI’s Mentoring Program:
Applications Now Open

Now is your opportunity to join the Winter-Spring 2023 OBI mentoring cohort. If you have been thinking about becoming a mentor or mentee in the OBI Mentoring Program, your wait is over – applications are now open.

Applications will be open until October 31.

Read more about the OBI Mentoring Program and our year-round Advising Program here.

Mentor of the Month:
Satish Viswanatham

Satish Viswanatham is a new mentor in our OBI Mentoring Program. He brings a master’s degree in computer science, 15+ years working in startups, and previous mentoring experience to his relationship with his mentee. Satish is most experienced in cloud engineering, IT, and security. Over the years, he has mentored dozens of engineering leaders to be successful in their careers and startups.

Thank you, Satish, for your commitment to our startup community!

2022 Bend Venture Conference:
Attend • Present • Invest

The Bend Venture Conference (BVC), held on October 20 & 21, 2022 in Bend, Oregon, is the signature event for entrepreneurial activity in the Pacific Northwest. The major objectives of this event are to provide exposure and investment opportunities for entrepreneurs and build an engaged community of investors in Central Oregon.

The event attracts over 600 attendees, many of whom come from beyond Central Oregon (50% of attendees come from outside the region). Investments, awards, and prizes have totaled over $10 million in the last five years, making BVC the largest angel conference in the West.

There are three tracks for the competition: Early Stage, Growth Stage, and Impact (including VitalFlo, an OBI client company finalist in the Impact category). Don’t miss it! Get your tickets HERE.

*****

And you won’t want to miss this:
OBI is holding a free networking lunch at OSU-Cascades Innovation Co-Lab in Bend on October 20 before the BVC seminars begin.
Details and registration here!

SBIR/STTR Program: From the Sources’ Mouth

BBCetc’s SBIR/STTR Assistance Program invites everyone to join their monthly “From the Sources’ Mouth” series featuring SBIR/STTR program managers telling you what you need to know to have success with their agencies. These monthly events feature a 1-hour virtual training session conducted by a federal program manager and cover their specific agency’s mission and tips for creating a successful proposal, all sessions include time for Q&A with the agency presenter. They also host a large event every fall, featuring presenters across several agencies. This series is for technology-based entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses familiar with the SBIR/STTR programs who want to learn more about proposal submission.

September’s 7th-annual event featured 3-day SBIR/STTR training with federal program managers across all 11 agencies, with presentations from program managers, panel discussions and live Q&A. If you missed it, you can watch recordings here.

OBI Events

Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health
Networking Lunch in Bend
October 20, 2022
12:00-1:30 PM
OSU-Cascades Innovation Co-Lab – Bend
Register here

Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health Happy Hour
November 3, 2022
5:30-7:00 PM
George Fox University Portland Center
Register here

Hybrid Lunch & Learn: Financial Success
Through Accounting Best Practices
November 16, 2022
12:00-1:00 PM
OBI or Virtual Option
Register here

Other Community Partner Events

The MedTech Conference
October 24-26, 2022
Boston, Massachusetts
Information here

OEN Entrepreneurship Awards 2022:
EXPONENTIAL: THE POWER OF US
November 17, 2022
5:30-9:00 PM
Portland Art Museum
Purchase tickets here

Biotech Summit 2022 + Bio on the Vine
November 15, 2022
2:00-8:00 PM
Knight Cancer Research Building – Portland
Purchase tickets here

-and-

Bio in the Valley 2022
December 1, 2022
5:00-8:00 PM
Phil and Penny Knight Campus for
Accelerating Scientific Impact – Eugene
Purchase tickets here

Welcome New Client Companies to the OBI!

VitalFlo helps leading clinicians and researchers improve patient outcomes and advance lung health by providing comprehensive respiratory data, analysis and care.

Keliomics offers pharmacophenotyping for patients with solid tumors including breast, prostate, and certain types of metastatic cancer.

OBI Client Company Wins

Madorra

• We were selected out of a record-setting number of applicants to present at the McKinsey Early Stage Investor Conference in June.
• We were featured on a Washington University in St. Louis panel entitled: WashU Women Changing the Way We Live and Work
• We were selected (for the second time!) as one of the showcase companies for the NIH SBIR Investor Initiatives program. The NIH will be sponsoring us to attend the AdvaMed conference in Boston, MA this fall.

Hemex Health

• We received Portland Business Journal’s Global Impact Award as part of their Health Care of the Future Program. Patti White, CEO and co-founder, accepted the award during their ceremony held on August 18.
• Gazelle received Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) recommendation for sickle cell testing in India. Gazelle was one of three diagnostic platforms selected for this highly competitive and rigorous nod of approval.

SUTUREGARD Medical

• Our biggest recent win had almost nothing to do with us.  A general surgeon at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland got a hold of our wound closure device HEMIGARD, loved it, got it approved locally and then nationally and now we have received orders from multiple Kaiser clinical facilities.
• This surgeon is not an advisor or consultant to us, and just liked what HEMIGARD was doing for her wound closure results.

Promedix

• We are really excited to announce that Promedix has been selected into the highly competitive Creative Destruction Labs–Healthcare/Biomed Engineering Stream.

Sparrow Pharmaceuticals (OBI alumus)

• Sparrow has dosed the 1st patient in a phase 2 clinical trial of SPI-62 with prednisolone for polymyalgia rheumatica. Read press release here.
• Congratulations to Sparrow CSO and Founder, David Katz, for the honor of being a PharmaVoice 100! David was recognized for his entrepreneurial spirit and pursuit of finding a treatment for disorders due to steroid excess using scientific prowess and an artist’s vision. Read Dr. Katz’ interview.

Business Oregon Announces Two Grant Opportunities

Business Oregon announces the opening of matching grant applications. Applicants who have received recent Phase I or Phase II SBIR or STTR grants may be eligible for an Oregon matching grant of $50,000 or $100,000. Applications are due by October 7. Read the details and find the application here.

Business Oregon has also opened a Request for Grant Applications for High Impact Opportunity Projects (HIOP). Grant applications must be received by 8:00 am on October 10, 2022. More information on the eligibility for the grant program and the application materials are available on the Business Oregon HIOP website.

Mentor of the Month:
Claire Celeste Carnes

Claire Celeste Carnes (CC) is a Curriculum Designer and Adjunct Instructor at the New York University Wagner School. She has a strong 20+ year career in marketing and communications, especially in technology and health. Her educational background includes an MBA from Northwestern University with a marketing focus. As a PDX-WIT mentor for multiple years, a prior OBI Biomentor, and member and board member for Women’s Leadership Council in Portland, CC shows her dedication to helping others. She brings a passion and enthusiasm for her work, plus a structured, analytical approach combined with metrics.

Thank you, CC, for your commitment to our startup community!

OBI’s Mentoring Program:
Applications open October 1

And just like that, Fall is here. With it comes preparations to select the Winter-Spring 2023 OBI mentoring cohort. If you have been thinking about joining the OBI’s Mentoring Program, save the date – applications open on October 1 and remain open until October 31.

Read more about the OBI Mentoring Program and our year-round Advising Program here.

Biomedical Innovation: Commercialization Readiness Program

Have an idea for an innovative technology but don’t know where to start? BIP Corp is a 5-week experiential course designed to help you and your team assess and validate your biomedical technology. Gain the knowledge and tools to initiate innovation and commercialization of your technology, and develop a competitive business case to secure funding, partnerships, and further research opportunities.

Sept 21 – Oct 26, 2022 entirely virtual.

View full course schedule and details.
ENROLL here.
Offered at no-cost by OHSU’s Oregon Clinical and Translational Research Institute (OCTRI) and I-Corps@NCATS.

This course is appropriate for faculty, researchers, students, and industry scientists with an early-stage idea or team with an idea. Non-OHSU participants welcome. BIP Corp instructors are experts from across the bioscience industry and academia with experience bringing healthcare technologies and therapeutics to market.

Contact Melissa Mudd, muddm@ohsu.edu, with questions.

2022 Bend Venture Conference:
Attend • Present • Invest

The Bend Venture Conference (BVC), held on October 20 & 21, 2022 in Bend, Oregon, is the signature event for entrepreneurial activity in the Pacific Northwest. The major objectives of this event are to provide exposure and investment opportunities for entrepreneurs and build an engaged community of investors in Central Oregon.

The event attracts over 600 attendees, many of whom come from beyond Central Oregon (50% of attendees come from outside the region). Investments, awards, and prizes have totaled over $10 million in the last five years, making BVC the largest angel conference in the West.

There are three tracks for the competition: Early Stage, Growth Stage, and Impact. Don’t miss it! Get your tickets HERE.

2023 Beaverton Startup Challenge

The Oregon Technology Business Center (OTBC) recently changed our name to the Oregon Startup Center. We want to help serve all entrepreneurs and the various sectors they represent with our 8th Beaverton Startup Challenge.

2023 Beaverton Startup Challenge Funding Competition FAQ

• On-line application will run August 24 – October 5, 2022
  Go to oregonstartupcenter.org for the application link
• 10-12 semi finalists will be chosen in late October. Semi finalists
  will then pitch to our angel investors.
• Five finalists will be selected by late November.
• Checks given and celebration will be held in early December.
• How much funding do I receive from OSC if I am one of the five
  finalists?

• • $25,000 in cash and services to each winning company
  • $4,800 charged for mentoring, advising, business contacts,
    connections and other community partner introductions AND office
    space.
  • $20,200 net cash paid to each finalist.
  • The winning companies sign a 2-year convertible note at 8% annual
    interest payable to Westside Startup Fund 8.
• The Beaverton Challenge started in 2016. For the 2022 Challenge
  $50K from the City of Beaverton was matched with $102,863 from
  18 angel investors for a total fund size of $152,863.
• Of the 35 Challenge winners so far, 26 of them (75%) are still in
  business.
• Cumulatively, the Challenge companies have gone on to raise over
  $95 million in additional funding!

OBI Events

Lunch & Learn: Public Relations &
Thought Leadership for Life Science Startups
September 22, 2022
12:00-1:00 PM
Oregon Bioscience Incubator & virtual option
Register here

Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health Happy Hour
October 13, 2022
5:30-7:00 PM
Field Office Courtyard & Living Room
Register here

Other Community Partner Events

Women in Science PDX:
Finding and Using Your Voice
September 14, 2022
12:00-1:00 PM
Virtual
Register here

TiE Oregon Westside Pub Talk:
Equity Financing at all Stages
September 20, 2022
5:15-7:00 PM
Golden Valley Brewery – Bethany
Register here

Zapproved & TechTown PDX Lunch & Learn:
Accountability in Action
September 21, 2022
12:00-1:00 PM
Virtual
Register here

Pitch Latinx 2022
October 5, 2022
5:30-8:00 PM
The Redd East – Portland
Get tickets here

Oregon Bioengineering Symposium
October 6, 2022
LaSells Stewart Center at Oregon State University
Details here

The MedTech Conference
October 24-26, 2022
Boston, Massachusetts
Information here

Bio in the Valley 2022
December 1, 2022
5:00-8:00 PM
Phil and Penny Knight Campus for
Accelerating Scientific Impact – Eugene
Purchase tickets here

OBI Client Company Wins

Hemex Health

• We received National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) for continuing to support Hemex Health and Case School of Engineering at Case Western Reserve University with a $1.7M Phase II STTR follow up award for our “portable, affordable, quantitative microchip electrophoresis for hemoglobin A1C (diabetes) testing.”
• We launched our COVID-19 point-of-care diagnostic, Gazelle PathoCatch, in India on July 7 and plan to launch to our other distributors worldwide later this summer.
• CEO and Co-Founder Patti White was interviewed by International Finance Corporation (IFC).

ProMedix

• Founders Dr. David Sheridan and Dr. Matthew Hansen co-authored a journal article in Frontiers in Medicine, entitled “Point-Of-Care Capillary Refill Technology Improves Accuracy of Peripheral Perfusion Assessment.”

NeuvaRx

• NeuvaRx received an NIH phase I STTR award that started July 1.
• We also received a matching grant award from Oregon Business Development for the STTR award.

Gamma Diagnostics

• Gamma Diagnostics Inc. and OHSU have signed a licensing agreement that seeks to further develop and commercially promote the use of Gamma Prime Fibrinogen (GPF) as an inflammatory and clotting risk biomarker.
• High GPF levels have previously shown positive correlation with peripheral artery disease, heart failure and CVD deaths in the ARIC study. Dr. David Farrell (Founder and CSO) published an abstract at AHA 2021 showing COVID-19 patients can develop extraordinarily high levels of GPF.
• Gamma Diagnostics Inc. will now continue to invest in further clinical studies, regulatory submission, and commercialization activities to bring GPF as a biomarker to market.

Inherent Targeting

• We were awarded an SBIR matching grant from Business Oregon for ~$50k to complete in vitro testing and regulatory planning of our lead contrast agent towards clinical translation.

Outstanding wins!

Wanted: Digital Health Feedback

OBI is looking for feedback from the community about accelerating the growth of digital health. Digital health is a fast-growing segment in Oregon’s healthcare ecosystem. We’re looking for community feedback about your views on digital health and the resources that companies need to grow. Click here to take the 12-question survey.

Thank you for your participation!

Mentor of the Month:
Mary Phillips

Mary Phillips joined the OBI Mentoring Program as a Mentor after going through the program as a Mentee in her role as Chief Strategic Officer for Thaena, Inc.

With a B.Sc. Chemistry from Durham University, a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Imperial College in London, and her background as a USPTO Registered Patent Agent – combined with many years of experience in startups and university tech transfer, Mary brings a wealth of knowledge to her role as an OBI Mentor.

Mary says, “My passion is solving puzzles – and all the pieces of how startups come together are great puzzles! The most complicated puzzle pieces of startups are the founders. Working with the founder to overcome the hurdles and obstacles and confidently lead using their style to achieve their goals is, for me, very fulfilling work. And then there is the joy of seeing a founder take an idea and turn it into an innovation that people will buy – knowing that I helped in some way in making that possible.” Mary is a connector, coach, mentor, and strategist for STEMMbridge in Corvallis, Oregon.

Thank you, Mary, for all you do for our Oregon startups!

Think BIG: Bend Innovation Group

Introducing Bend Innovation Group (BIG), founded in beautiful Bend, Oregon:

“A common conception among members of the Bend Innovation Group (BIG) is that the enormous beauty of our region inspires dreamers and innovators. This is evidenced by the successful and expansive growth in Bend and throughout the Central Oregon region over the past two decades. Our members also share the vision that Bend is well positioned to prosper in our future growth if supported by a historically successful, highly experienced, and knowledgeable team of professionals, public and industry partners, and a channel of entrepreneurs who are ready to establish their footprint and lay their stake in our wonderful town.

It’s on this premise that BIG has been conceived and is taking form to foster conscientious, generational development in our region leveraging the strengths of our founding members’ decades of success in the health sciences. We’re a group of med-tech innovators and entrepreneurs, practicing physicians, professors and researchers, and successful financial professionals who have come together to pool our life experiences, share our knowledge, our time, and our passion with like minded entrepreneurs.

In addition to contributing to regional growth and development our goal is to improve the lives of others, both locally and well beyond.

By supporting healthcare innovation with our mentoring, private and public partnerships, and funding resources we’re able to foster early phase, pre-revenue startups from concept, through launch, and onto seed funding stages of growth.”

For more information about BIG, visit their website and check out their team, portfolio companies, and fellowship program.

Oregon’s Bio Boom:
2022 Economic Impact Report

Our friends at Oregon Bioscience Association recently released a comprehensive 2022 economic impact report, measuring the economic, fiscal, and demographic impacts of Oregon’s Bioscience industry. This report also includes Clark County, Washington. Our industry is doing great things in Oregon and SW Washington.

You can download the full report or the summary in PDF format here. Read it and celebrate Oregon’s Bio Boom!

2022 Bend Venture Conference:
Attend • Present • Invest

The Bend Venture Conference (BVC), held on October 20 & 21, 2022 in Bend, Oregon, is the signature event for entrepreneurial activity in the Pacific Northwest. The major objectives of this event are to provide exposure and investment opportunities for entrepreneurs and build an engaged community of investors in Central Oregon.

The event attracts over 600 attendees, many of whom come from beyond Central Oregon (50% of attendees come from outside the region). Investments, awards, and prizes have totaled over $10 million in the last five years, making BVC the largest angel conference in the West.

There are three tracks for the competition: Early Stage, Growth Stage, and Impact. Applications are due by August 16, 2022. For more information and application, click here.

Hiring or Job Searching?

OBI has launched a free Job Board where you can easily list your organization’s open positions. Click here to post your open positions. We’ll approve it on our end, and it will be posted for 30 days (and it’s renewable too).

And, if you’re a job seeker and would like to have your resume reviewed by recruiters in the community, please upload your resume to the “submit resume” section of our job board.

OBI Events

Lunch & Learn: Creating Equity Every Day
August 25, 2022
12:00-1:00 PM
Oregon Bioscience Incubator & virtual option
Register here

Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health Happy Hour
September 1, 2022
5:30-7:00 PM
Oregon Bioscience Incubator
Register here

Other Community Partner Events

Women in Science PDX:
Women in Biotech Panel
August 17, 2022
12:00-1:00 PM
Virtual
Register here

Partners in Diversity: Say Hey!
August 17, 2022
5:30-8:00 PM
World Trade Center Building Two Plaza
Register here

2023 Beaverton Challenge Information Session
August 24, 2022
4:00-6:00 PM
OTBC Office – Beaverton
Register here

Bio in the Valley 2022
December 1, 2022
5:00-8:00 PM
Phil and Penny Knight Campus for
Accelerating Scientific Impact – Eugene
Purchase tickets here

Business Oregon Awards Matching
Grants to Five OBI Client Companies

Just announced! Business Oregon and Oregon InC have awarded Phase I matching grants of up to $50,000 to OBI client companies Inherent Targeting, NeuvaRx, and OmnEcoil Instruments.

• Inherent Targeting will use their award for analysis of a lead compound and in preparation for FDA approval of their fluorescent compound used in surgeries to prevent nerve damage.
• NeuvaRX will use their grant for IP protection and product testing in their compound to improve treatment of hemorrhagic stroke.
• OmnEcoil’s award will provide regulatory support services for their prostate cancer diagnostics.

Business Oregon and Oregon InC have also awarded Phase II matching grants of up to $100,000 to OBI client companies Health Technology Innovation (HTI) and PDX Pharmaceuticals.

• HTI’s grant award will help commercialize and accelerate its CryoDiscovery™ product launch.
• PDX Pharmaceuticals will utilize their grant for IP protection, in financing a new facility, and for fundraising support.

Congratulations to these five companies and the 14 others who received these Phase I and Phase II matching grants to to enhance their federal SBIR and STTR grant awards. Read the full press release for more details.

More OBI Client Company Wins

Endosound

• We recently announced Scott Fraser as a new addition to our board.  Scott comes with a world of knowledge in startups, the Gastroenterology (GI) space, and the Ambulatory Surgical Center (ASC) market.
• In late May, we had our first ever booth at Digestive Disease Week (DDW).  This conference is the premier conference for the GI space, attracting doctors, industry professionals, and investors from all over the world.  We had tremendous response at the booth and as a result of several meetings with physicians and strategic partners.
• Some of the Endosound team, in partnership with physicians in Ecuador, showcased the Endosound Vision System (EVS) on Endoscopy on Air (EOA) on June 3rd.  The Global Annual Live Streaming Event on EOA had physicians from around the world educate and demonstrate their techniques in various endoscopic procedures to the 11,000 virtual attendees.  We were honored to sponsor a session with partner Dr. Carlos Robles Medranda at the Ecuadorian Institute of Digestive Disease.

HTI

• Received Phase II matching grant award from Business Oregon (see above)!
• In collaboration with Oregon BIO, HTI attended the Bio International 2022 with great success.
• HTI will present CryoDiscovery™ and CryoFast™ at the Microscopy & Microanalysis 2022 and American Crystallographic Association 2022 conferences on July 29 – Aug  4 in Portland, Oregon
• HTI signed a service agreement with ADRx Pharma for Cryo-EM sample optimization and image analysis.

Hemex Health

• We are proud to announce the official launch of the Gazelle™ PathoCatch™ COVID-19 FIA test, a diagnostic solution for point-of-care testing, made in collaboration with @MylabSolutions. Read the full press release.

Rewire Neuro

• Rewire attended BIO International as part of the Oregon Pavilion and pitched at the Startup Stadium as a finalist, gaining recognition, feedback, and interest from a large group of investors and potential partners from around the world.

StoneStable, Inc.

• Ken Stedman and Dan Snyder from StoneStable were at the BIO meeting in San Diego and made a number of connections with international pharmaceutical companies, large and small.

Wanted: Digital Health Feedback

OBI is looking for feedback from the community about accelerating the growth of digital health. Digital health is a fast-growing segment in Oregon’s healthcare ecosystem. We’re looking for community feedback about your views on digital health and the resources that companies need to grow. Click here to take the 12-question survey.

Thank you for your participation!

Summer-Fall Mentoring Cohort Begins

We are thrilled to welcome 13 mentees and 16 mentors to our Summer-Fall 2022 mentoring cohort. They began working together on July 1 for the 6-month program which runs through the end of the year.

Mentees (L to R for each row): Eduardo Ceballos, Kim Hutchison, Reva Barewal, Alexander Honkala, Jeremy Hammer, Sandhiprakash Bhide, Alison Carrigg, Cory Szybala, Elie Traer, Sydney Quinton-Cox Forbes, Melissa Belli, Jason Scott, and Jean Summerton.

Mentors (L to R for each row): Josh Ellison, Satish Viswanatham, Mary Phillips, Katie Rubino, Jacquie Murray, Shannon Heizenrader, Philbert Lee, Michael Phillips, Aaron Daugherty, Alex Reed, Claire Celeste Carnes, Kabir Bhatia, Shelly Sweeney, Mel Ellis, Lynn Sheehan, and Daren Connor.

To learn more about OBI’s mentoring program, please see our Mentoring page. Applications will open in October for the next cohort.

Hiring or Seeking?
Post it on OBI’s Job Board!

OBI has launched a FREE Job Board where you can easily list your organization’s open positions. Click here to post your open positions. We’ll approve it on our end, and it will be posted for 30 days (and it’s renewable too).

And, if you’re a job seeker and would like to have your resume reviewed by recruiters in the community, please upload your resume to the “submit resume” section of our job board.

Oregon Bioscience Association:
OBW CONNECT Live
July 7, 2022
5:00-8:00 PM
Ironlight in Lake Oswego
Purchase tickets here

OBI Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health
July Happy Hour
July 14, 2022
5:30-7:00 PM
Canvas at Press Blocks Penthouse & Rooftop
Portland, Oregon
Free to attend – register here!

Biomedical Entrepreneurship Fireside Chat
July 14 & 21, 2022
2:00-3:00 PM
Virtual program
Register here

Bio in the High Desert: What’s Brewing
July 19, 2022
5:00-7:30 PM
OSU-Cascades Campus
Bend, Oregon
Purchase tickets here

OBI Hybrid Lunch & Learn:
Biotech Funding Strategies
July 20, 2022
12:00-1:00 PM
OSU-Cascades Graduate Research Center
Bend, Oregon
Free to attend – register here

TAO: Party in the Pinot
July 23, 2022
5:00-10:00 PM
Scholls Valley Lodge
Hillsboro, OR
Purchase tickets here

Welcome NeuvaRx to the OBI!

NeuvaRx is preclinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of therapies and diagnostic tools for neurovascular disorders, including, but not limited to ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke and vascular dementia.

We are happy to have you onboard!

OBI Client Company Wins

Veana Therapeutics

• Participated in the Research in Your Back Yard panel at the OBI in May.
• Recently enrolled a third patient in their clinical trial at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle and will soon be opening a second trial site at Providence Cancer Center, Portland.

StoneStable, Inc.

• StoneStable founder and CSO Ken Stedman received the 2022 ARIS Impact Goals Award! Read press release for details.
• StoneStable, Inc. was one of the finalists for the Angel Oregon Life & Bio (AOBIO) investment!

Gamma Diagnostics, Inc.

• We filed a Provisional Patent Application in United States No. 63/268,605: “Use of γ’ fibrinogen as a Biomarker in the Detection of Covid-19 and Prognosis of Severe Disease.”
• And we filed a pre-Emergency Use Authorization to the FDA entitled: “Gamma-prime fibrinogen ELISA.”

Hemex Health

• Hemex Health announced a significant enhancement to their Gazelle™ Hb Variant test, which allows for more precise measurements of Hb F, also known as fetal hemoglobin. The increased accuracy could be useful for monitoring hydroxyurea therapy in point-of-care settings. Hemex will provide “over the air” updates with the Hb F enhancement that can be downloaded directly to existing Gazelle Readers. The improvement will ship with new systems. Read press release here.

SUTUREGARD

• The most recent episode (Season 4 – Episode 3 entitled “A Smell from Hell”) of “My Feet are Killing Me” featured HEMIGARD being used by “Dr. Brad” to close a very tough plantar wound.  It does have graphic content including live surgery footage.  The patient in question can hardly walk due to masses of callus on the ball of her foot – the surgical excision leaves a large wound that is difficult to close, and Dr. Brad uses HEMIGARD to help close the defect.  The patient has an excellent result and is ecstatic! View it on Amazon Prime or other streaming platforms.

Inherent Targeting

• Congratulations to Inherent Targeting, one of the finalists for Angel Oregon Life & Bio (AOBIO).

Sparrow Pharmaceuticals (an OBI alumnus)

• Sparrow Pharmaceuticals received ethics committee and regulatory authority go-ahead for three Phase 2 clinical trials, in patients with Cushing syndrome, autonomous cortisol secretion, and polymyalgia rheumatica.
• Dr. David Katz was selected to give oral presentations on new clinical pharmacology and non-clinical study results at three prestigious conferences in May-June: European Congress of Endocrinology in Milan, European League Against Rheumatism in Copenhagen, and Endocrine Society in Atlanta. Read press release here.

AOBIO Congratulations!

A fabulous afternoon at the inaugural Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience (AOBIO) Grand Finale & Innovation Showcase, an in-person celebration on May 26th, 2022, 3-7 p.m. at Amaterra Winery in Portland.

OBI & OTRADI Executive Director Heather Ellis (pictured below, left) and Amanda Oborne from OEN (right) presented the Big Check to Ray Browning, co-founder of Biomotum, winner of the ~$300,000 AOBIO Investors’ angel investment!

Congratulations to all of the 2022 AOBIO finalists: Inherent Targeting, Savorease Therapeutic Foods, and StoneStable!

Also big congratulations to High Peak Medical Systems, who won the EMERGE award, sponsored by Black Founders Matter Fund.

AOBIO is a collaborative effort by Oregon Entrepreneurs Network, OHSU, Oregon Bioscience Association, and OBI/OTRADI. Thanks to everyone who participated in making this program a success!

OBI Mentor of the Month:
Shelly Sweeney

Shelly Sweeney is the Founder and Solopreneur Business Coach of Beeline Coaching. She joined the OBI Mentoring Program in January, 2022 and receives high praise from her mentee each month. Her past experience with startups include working with entrepreneurs and startups, as well as surgical device startups.

Shelly says, “I have always been a leader out-performing goals wherever I have worked and someone managers described as someone they wish ‘they had nine more of.’  My coworkers describe me as someone who they can call to listen to them, share ideas and be a positive influence.” We agree! Thank you, Shelly, for all you do for the OBI community!

Hiring or Seeking?
Post it on OBI’s Job Board!

OBI has launched a Job Board where you can easily list your organization’s open positions. Click here to post your open positions. We’ll approve it on our end, and it will be posted for 30 days (and it’s renewable too).

And, if you’re a job seeker and would like to have your resume reviewed by recruiters in the community, please upload your resume to the “submit resume” section of our job board.

OBI’s New Shared Lab
Sponsored by PhRMA

On May 20, to celebrate International Clinical Trials Day, we held a Research in Your Back Yard panel discussion program, followed by a ribbon cutting for our newest shared equipment lab for OBI client companies. Thanks to a generous donation by PhRMA, we outfitted our new shared lab with a biosafety cabinet, CO2 incubators, centrifuge, rocker platform, and vortex mixer.

Thank you to PhRMA for your support!

Zapproved & Cinder:
Voices of Equity
Gender Identity & Pronouns
One Non-Binary Story
June 10, 2022
9:00-9:30 AM
Register here

OBI Hybrid Lunch & Learn
Women in Leadership Part 2:
Continuing the Conversation
June 22, 2022
12:00-1:00 PM
Register here

Oregon Bioscience Association:
OBW CONNECT Live
with Emily Leproust of Twist Bioscience
July 7, 2022
5:00-8:00 PM
Tickets here

Save the Date!
OBI Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health
July Happy Hour
July 14, 2022
5:30-7:00 PM
Canvas Rooftop
Save the Date

OBI Client Company Wins

Inherent Targeting

• Inherent Targeting was selected as a finalist for the Angel Oregon Life & Bio (AOBIO) investment competition through OEN! We will be competing for a ~$300k investment, with the winner announced at the Finale event on May 26th at Amaterra Winery in Portland. See press release.

StoneStable, Inc.

• StoneStable, Inc. moved in to their new lab space in Suite 130A at the OBI.
• StoneStable, Inc. is one of the finalists for the Angel Oregon Life & Bio (AOBIO) investment! See press release.

EndoSound

• EndoSound is pleased to announce two new full-time employees. We are thrilled to have these two join our growing team.
  • Peter Hoffman has joined as Senior Product Development Engineer.  He will help to bring new and innovative ultrasound products to market. His 10+ years engineering experience ranges from robotics to medical devices with much of his time at Olympus developing novel biopsy tools for the lungs. He has authored 6 patent applications. Peter holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering and a minor in Business and Entrepreneurship from Oregon State University.
  • Patrick Hurley has joined as the Vice President of Marketing. Patrick comes with 13 years in product and market management in medical device, as well as several years as a life sciences consultant. Patrick has documented successes in each role as he continued to grow with responsibilities. He has helped build brand identity and established strong relationships with KOLs in the GI community. He holds a Ph.D. in biology, specializing in neuroscience from Wesleyan University.
• Winner of AGA Shark Tank and Innovation of the year. We had the opportunity to compete in the American Gastroenterology Association (AGA) Shark Tank for innovative technologies in early April and won!!
• We’ll be competing again with our innovative Endoscopic Ultrasound device at the end of May at the largest Gastroenterology professional conference in the world called Digestive Disease Week (DDW).
• We have also been honored with the Innovation of the Year from the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE). This distinction is granted to companies with products that show promise for advancing the field of GI endoscopy.
• Together, these awards demonstrate to the broader GI community that our mission to democratize EUS is taking shape. There could not be a better time to follow the EndoSound journey. View our LinkedIn page.

Gamma Diagnostics, Inc.

• Gamma Diagnostics presented at the Expert Dojo Investor Festival on April 7 in Los Angeles. Our new CSO, Dr. Jamie Noll, and Founder Dr. David Farrell presented. See event details here.

HTI

• HTI has signed master service agreements with IDEAYA Biosciences and ADRx for cryo-EM structure determination services to support their drug discovery efforts. IDEAYA is a synthetic lethality-focused precision medicine oncology company and ADRx is a biotechnology company with a unique approach to halting diseases of protein aggregation.
• HTI presented poster sessions on CryoDiscovery, its AI platform for cryo-EM image processing, at the 17th Annual Drug Discovery Chemistry conference in San Diego and at the 2022 Astbury Conversation, a leading macromolecular conference held at the University of Leeds in the UK. HTI has also been selected for a session presentation at Microscopy and Microanalysis 2022, the microscopy industry’s premier conference to be held in Portland, Oregon from July 31st to August 4th.

Hemex Health

• We have two abstracts that were accepted for the 4th Global Congress on Sickle Cell Disease (June 16-18) in Paris.
  • “Point-of-care diagnostic for quantification of fetal haemoglobin (Hb F) levels in monitoring hydroxyurea therapy for children with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) in Ghana” has been accepted for a poster presentation.
  • “Evaluation of first microchip-based point-of-care device for diagnosis of Beta-Thalassemia in India” has been accepted for a poster presentation.

SUTUREGARD

• Dr Alton Johnson of University of Michigan Podiatry presented at the Society for Advanced Wound Care (SAWC) last month in Phoenix on HEMIGARD closure of Stage 4 (bone involved) heel wounds.  He won first place in the Practice Innovation category for this work.  HEMIGARD is allowing surgeons to close wounds that have not been able to be closed with normal suture materials.  Normal suture does not work well on soft heel skin which does not resist tearing when under tension.  HEMIGARD corrects this problem.

Synergic Medical Technologies

• Synergic Medical Technologies was a finalist in the 2022 Oregon Technology Awards in the Pre-Revenue category.

Madorra

• In February, Holly was featured as UCSF’s Rosenman Healthtech leader of the month
• Madorra was featured on the Medsider podcast in March
• We also gave a talk at the Angel Oregon Life and Bioscience investment program

Refeyn

• Refeyn closed Series B funding round, led by Northpond Ventures! Read their press release here.

Research in Your Back Yard
May 20 at 10 a.m.

Celebrate International Clinical Trials Day on May 20, by streaming an OBI/OTRADI panel titled, “Research in Our Backyard: Developing Cures, Creating Jobs in Oregon,” in partnership with the Oregon Alliance of Clinical Researchers.

In our panel discussion, we’ll be bringing together the perspectives of an Oregon Bioscience Incubator researcher, clinical researcher, patient, and the biopharmaceutical industry to explain everything that goes into developing treatments and cures for local patients and the important work happening here in our state.

Panelists: Emmanuel Akporiaye, Veana Therapeutics, an OBI resident company; Searcy Craighead, Oregon patient and member of Kaleidoscope Fighting Lupus; Curt A. Heiting, B.B.A., President of Cyn3rgy Research and Development and member of the Oregon Alliance of Clinical Researchers; and Reid Porter, Senior Director of State Public Affairs at the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).

Register here!

Hiring or Seeking?
Post it on OBI’s Job Board 

OBI has launched a Job Board where you can easily list your organization’s open positions. Click here to post your open positions. We’ll approve it on our end, and it will be posted for 30 days (and it’s renewable too).

And, if you’re a job seeker and would like to have your resume reviewed by recruiters in the community, please upload your resume to the “submit resume” section of our job board.

Don’t Miss the AOBIO Finale!

Join us for the inaugural Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience (AOBIO) Grand Finale & Innovation Showcase, an in-person celebration on May 26th, 2022, 3-7pm at Amaterra Winery in Portland.

You won’t want to miss the Big Check Moment, sponsored by OBI/OTRADI, when AOBIO Investors announce which of the four finalists have earned the angel investment, up to $300,000!

Finalists for AOBIO 2022 are:

• Biomotum
• Inherent Targeting
• Savorease Therapeutic Foods
• StoneStable

All this and Amaterra wine and views! Join us for this special celebration of entrepreneurship in Oregon.

Purchase Tickets Here

Final Call to Complete
Bioscience Ecosystem Inventory Survey

The Oregon Bioscience Incubator (OBI) is the state’s first and only bioscience-focused incubator. The multi-client company bioscience complex provides startups and scientists access to entrepreneurial mentoring, state-of-the-art bioscience facilities, meeting space, and shared equipment. While OBI currently provides free resources to the full community, we understand there are still some unmet needs and would like to learn more about how OBI can help fill resource gaps.

If you haven’t already, please take 15 minutes to fill out this survey to help assess the needs of the community by identifying additional resources needed. The survey will close at the end of May. Thank you!

Research in Your Back Yard
Panel Discussion
May 20, 2022
10:00-11:00 AM
Register here

AOBIO 2022 Grand Finale &
Innovation Showcase
May 26, 2022
3:00-7:00 PM
Amaterra Winery
Get tickets here

Business Oregon has
Matching Grants Available

Business Oregon has just announced a Request for Grant Applications. Applicants who have recently received federal Phase I SBIR/STTR awards, or Phase II awards, may be eligible for a state matching grant.

More information is available at the Business Oregon website. Applications are due by May 8, 2022.

OBI Client Company Wins

Gamma Diagnostics, Inc.

• We are thrilled to announce the promotion of Jamie Noll, Pharm.D., B.S. Nutrition to Chief Scientific Officer for Gamma Diagnostics Inc., effective immediately. Jamie joined the Gamma Dx team late last year as a scientific and clinical advisor and in a very short time has helped establish key KOL relationships in the medical and clinical research community. She has had various roles and extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry last of which was as a Medical Science Liaison for Puma Biotechnology.
• “I have known Jamie for over 14 years and our professional and personal relationship has been forged through challenging projects and arduous decisions. Not only is she extremely talented in her field but she represents the highest standard in ethics and integrity. I feel honored and privileged she has decided to join us in the CSO capacity.” Ajay Nair, CEO Gamma Diagnostics Inc.
• “Dr. Noll is a fabulous addition to the Gamma Diagnostics team! Her industry experience and scientific expertise are critical assets that will help propel Gamma Diagnostics forward.” Dr. David Farrell, Founder, Scientific Advisor, Gamma Diagnostics Inc.

HTI

• Health Technology Innovations, Inc. (HTI) is excited to announce that Dr. Doug Kawahara is joining HTI as Senior Advisor for AI/ML in Drug Discovery. Dr. Kawahara brings extensive experience in drug discovery and development to HTI. He is currently President & CEO of Elex Biotech (Portland, OR), a company developing novel drugs for the treatment of arrhythmia and heart failure. Read full press release.
• HTI will be attending the 17th Annual Drug Discovery Chemistry event in San Diego on April 18-22, presenting a Poster session on CryoDiscovery™ its machine learning platform for cryo-EM image processing, and providing information on its cryo-EM Services offerings for drug discovery. If you would like to connect with us at the event, please reach out to Kennedy Brown, VP Business Development, via email kennedy@hti.ai or on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennedy-brown/
• HTI CTO,  Narasimha Kumar, will be presenting a poster session virtually at The Astbury Conversation 2022, on April 25-26 on CryoDiscovery™: Public Data-based AI/ML model enhancements for Cryo-EM Image Analysis. The Astbury is one of Europe’s premier conferences on macromolecular research, including a keynote by cryo-EM Nobel Laureate Richard Henderson. If you would like to connect with Kumar to learn more about CryoDiscovery and his presentation please contact him via email at kumar@hti.ai.

Hemex Health

• We received the 2022 West Coast Consortium for Technology & Innovation in Pediatrics (CTIP) grant award for catalyzing pediatric innovation (CPI), which supports the development of pediatric innovation from ideation through commercialization. We plan to use this grant to help apply for US FDA clearance to bring our affordable POC sickle cell test to the US.

SUTUREGARD

• SUTUREGARD Medical, Inc. received the honor of being chosen by MedTech Innovator for the MedTech Innovator Road Show.  In their words,”MedTech Innovator is the largest and highest performing accelerator of medical technology in the world and the medtech industry’s premiere showcase and competition for innovative medical device, digital health and diagnostic companies.”
• We will be pitching April 14 and hope to leverage our participation into favorable business development pathways.
• We received a lot of attention at trade shows including the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons in Austin Texas where we presented our 3rd study showing ~80% reduction in postoperative wound complications after repair of ankle fractures.
• We have enjoyed record sales in Q1 2022.

Synergic Medical Technologies

• Great news! They are a finalist in the 2022 Oregon Technology Awards in the Pre-Revenue category.

Congratulations on your successes. Keep up the good work!

Applications Now Open for
OBI Mentoring Program

Mentor and mentee applications opened on April 1 or this structured, 6-month mentoring program, so now is your opportunity to get involved!

Would You Like to be a Mentor?
If you have experience working with startups in health innovations/life science, consider applying to become a mentor. Benefits of mentoring include:

• Free mentor training
• Exclusive access to handpicked startups
• Exclusive network of mentors
• Give back to your community
• OBI highlights its mentors in the monthly newsletter

Growing Your Business? Become a Mentee!
We are looking for entrepreneurs who are already in business but would like guidance, accountability, and support from a mentor to help set and reach business goals. Benefits and time commitments for mentees include:

• Mentoring helps you grow your business! A recent survey from Kabbage found that 92% of businesses who have a mentor say mentoring has directly impacted their business growth and survival
• Mentee meets with mentor 2 hours a month for 6 months
• Mentee checks in with OBI once per month and completes a survey at the end of the program

Applications will be accepted from April 1-30.
For more important dates, details, and a link to the applications, visit www.otradi.org/mentoring.

Mentor of the Month: Michael Phillips

Michael Phillips, JD has been an OBI Mentor for many years. He has been advising startups for 39 years on all aspects of business – formation, capital raising, employment, governance and is always available to lend a hand to entrepreneurs. Michael is a partner at Davis, Wright, Tremaine, LLP. He listens well and offers practical strategic advice, and not just to his OBI mentees – he also currently acts as general counsel on a pro bono bias for the OBA, The Conservations Alliance and 1% for the Planet. He has served as a director for Portland Social ventures, Soul River, Susan B Komen, Portland Center for the Performing arts, the Software Association of Oregon.

Thank you Michael, for your tireless work for our community!

2022 Oregon Technology Awards

Don’t miss the 38th annual Oregon Technology Awards, Tuesday, May 3 at the Oregon Convention Center.

Celebrate 2022 Lifetime Achievement award recipient Craig Reinhart, Managing Director of Occupier Services at JLL; 2022 Sam Blackman award winner Henry Schuck, CEO & Chairman of Zoominfo; and 2022 Tech Champion award winner, The Lemelson Foundation.

In addition, there will be 2022 Company Awards in 10 categories, including our own Synergic Medical Technologies as a finalist in the Pre-Revenue category. Regional tech and tech-enabled companies are recognized for their accomplishments, leadership, and commitment to the industry and community.

OBI & OTRADI is pleased to be a sponsor for this event. Tickets are on sale now – don’t miss it!

Please Complete OBI’s
Bioscience Ecosystem Inventory Survey

The Oregon Bioscience Incubator (OBI) is the state’s first and only bioscience-focused incubator. The multi-client company bioscience complex provides startups and scientists access to entrepreneurial mentoring, state-of-the-art bioscience facilities, meeting space, and shared equipment. While OBI currently provides free resources to the full community, we understand there are still some unmet needs and would like to learn more about how OBI can help fill resource gaps.

If you haven’t already, please take 15 minutes to fill out this survey to help assess the needs of the community by identifying additional resources needed. Thank you!

OHSU Research Week
May 2-5

OHSU Research Week is an annual university-wide event that celebrates research performed by students, faculty, postdocs, and staff across all schools, centers, institutes and education programs.

Don’t miss keynote speakers, career development and negotiation workshops, poster presentations, and Innovation Day!

It’s all virtual this year. Learn more at the OHSU Research Week website.

Join OSU Iterate

Hybrid Lunch & Learn:
Demystifying Commercial Real Estate Leasing
April 26, 2022
12:00-1:00 PM
Limited attendees in-person at CBRE
Also livestreamed on Zoom
Register now!

Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health Happy Hour
May 5, 2022
5:30-7:00 PM
In-person! Location TBA
Save the date

Other Great Community Events

TAO Pride Community Kick-Off
April 14, 2022
4:00-6:00 PM
Mississippi Studios
Register here

OregonBio Zoomcast:
Inherent Targeting – Seeing the Nerve for What it is
April 20, 2022
9:00-9:30 AM
Register here

Zapproved Lunch & Learn:
Create Your Personal Racial Equity Roadmap
April 28, 2022
12:00-1:00 PM
Register here

Congratulations to VIR Biotechnology on their Graduation from OBI!

VIR Biotechnology graduated from the OBI February 28, 2022, after joining the incubator in 2015 as TomegaVax, an OHSU spinoff that is pursuing an HIV vaccine. VIR Biotechnology has had many successes throughout their time at the Oregon Bioscience Incubator, including initiating their Phase 1 clinical trial of VIR-1111, an investigational human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) T cell vaccine.

Upon graduation, VIR Biotechnology has relocated their lab and office from OTRADI’s incubator in the Willamette Wharf building on Portland’s South Waterfront, to the Riverside Centre business park just down the street from the incubator.

OTRADI Board of Directors Welcomes Carl Anderson

Carl Anderson was recently elected to OBI/OTRADI’s Board of Directors. Carl has retired from a more than three-decades long career as an Occupational Medicine physician, most recently at Northwest Permanente.

Carl brings a decade of private equity investing experience with minority owned Midwest manufacturer, TAG-Holding LLC. He is also a Venture Partner with Oregon Venture Fund.  In addition, he sits on the OHSU-PSU Philanthropic Advisory Board as well as the Alumni Council of National Medical Fellowships; a nonprofit dedicated to increasing the number of minority healthcare professionals.

The Oregon Translational Research and Development Institute’s (OTRADI) mission is dedicated to transforming scientific research developed in the state of Oregon’s research laboratories into commercial ventures.

Major Win for HTI!

Health Technology Innovations, Inc. was awarded a $1M SBIR Phase II grant from the National Science Foundation to commercialize CryoDiscovery ™, a Cryo-EM Automation and Intelligence Platform for Drug Discovery.

HTI has made great progress developing a prototype during Phase I and will be using this Phase II award, along with revenue from its growing cryo-EM services business, to fund its next stage of growth. HTI is hiring AI/ML software development engineers, interns & postdocs. For more information on these job openings, please inquire with VP Research & Development kumar@hti.ai.

More OBI Client Company Wins

Hemex Health

• We sent our first Gazelles to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia.
• This month we’re scheduled to ship commercially to Bahrein, Oman, Kuwait and Algeria, and we are already selling to Lebanon and UAE (Dubai and Abu Dhabi).
• We’ve partnered with distributors in Savona, Italy, our first European location.
• Umut Gurkan, our Chief Scientist for Sickle Cell Disease, based at Case Western in Ohio, was elected into the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering’s College of Fellows for his continuing achievements in medical and biological engineering.
• Patti White, Co-founder and CEO, recently participated as a presenter in an Angel Oregon Bio educational seminar and will be a featured panelist at OBI’s upcoming Lunch & Learn on Women in Leadership.

Veana Therapeutics, Inc.

• Founder and CEO Emmanuel Akporiaye, PhD, recently presented at an Angel Oregon Bio educational seminar.
• Their ongoing clinical trial for the study of Alpha-TEA and trastuzumab for the treatment of refractory HER2+ metastatic breast cancer continues at the University of Washington/Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center.

Madorra

• We were selected for the inaugural class of Series P– a collaboration accelerator sponsored by Procter & Gamble Ventures and Plug and Play
• We participated on a FemTech panel along with Convey Capital hosted by Stanford Biodesign
• Holly graduated from the Ferolyn Fellowship program
• CEO Holly Rockweiler was a presenter at a recent Angel Oregon Bio educational seminar.

Caregiven

• Caregiven was 1 of 4 finalists from the Australian round of the Zurich Innovation Championship. Selected from an applicant pool of over 90 insuretech solutions, Caregiven presented to Zurich’s Australian executive team including the global head of their LifeWell initiative.
  • The Zurich Innovation Championship is a worldwide challenge sponsored by the Zurich Insurance Group, one of the top insurance companies in the world, focused on identifying new and innovative solutions that meet the changing needs of their customers and help the industry face the future in an efficient and sustainable way. Selection of Caregiven as a country finalist was further recognition of the importance of recognizing the caregiver market and serving the unique needs of those needing care and those providing it.
• We also surpassed 1,000 sign-ups in mid-February – that’s over one thousand families going through a caregiving event globally who are benefitting from our product.
• Founder and CEO Candice Smith was a featured panelist at OBI’s February Lunch & Learn on How Accelerators Can Help Boost Your Startup.

Rewire Neuro

• Rewire Neuro was a finalist in Pitch Oregon by TiE Oregon, in the Life Science category.
• John Harkness, President and CEO, was a presenter in this week’s Angel Oregon Bio educational seminar.

Gamma Diagnostics, Inc.

• David Farrell, Founder and CSO participated as a featured panelist at OBI’s February Lunch & Learn on How Accelerators Can Help Boost Your Startup.
• Gamma Diagnostics recently participated in the Expert Dojo international accelerator program.

PDX Pharmaceuticals has Joined OBI

Please give a warm welcome to OBI’s newest residential company, PDX Pharmaceuticals.

PDX Pharmaceuticals is an IND-enabling stage biopharmaceutical company bringing complementary biological pathways together to achieve synergistic clinical benefits. Their patented mesoporous silica-based nanoparticle platform (Pdx-NP) has been optimized to co-deliver multiple classes of therapeutics (e.g., siRNA, small molecule drugs, antibodies, immunostimulants) to ensure that they reach the target cells at the same time to fully realize their synergy. It can deliver cargos to both cancer and immune cells. Their current focus is to generate effective anti-tumor immune response through profound CD8+ anti-tumor T cell production.

We are delighted to have you onboard!

Gearing up for Summer-Fall 2022
Mentoring Program

Mentor and mentee applications will open on April 1 for this structured, 6-month mentoring program, so save the date for your opportunity to get involved!

Would You Like to be a Mentor?
If you have experience working with startups in the bioscience or digital health industry, consider applying to become a mentor. Benefits of mentoring include:

• Free mentor training
• Exclusive access to handpicked startups
• Exclusive network of mentors
• Give back to your community
• OBI highlights its mentors in the monthly newsletter

Growing Your Business? Become a Mentee!
We are looking for entrepreneurs who are already in business but would like guidance, accountability, and support from a mentor to help set and reach business goals. Benefits and time commitments for mentees include:

• Mentoring helps you grow your business! A recent survey from Kabbage found that 92% of businesses who have a mentor say mentoring has directly impacted their business growth and survival
• Mentee meets with mentor 2 hours a month for 6 months
• Mentee checks in with OBI once per month and completes a survey at the end of the program

Applications will be accepted from April 1-30.
For more important dates, details, and a link to the applications, visit www.otradi.org/mentoring.

Angel Investors Participate in AOBIO

Calling all angel investors and the investor-curious! Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience (AOBIO) is an education and investment program designed to grow investment in local bio startups while helping new investors learn the sector. Units in a pooled investment fund start at $5K/each, and include the opportunity to join the startup education series, participate in due diligence, learn the ropes from experienced bioscience angel investors, get exposed to cutting edge innovation, and get networked in the bioscience entrepreneurial community. Investor commit date is March 18. More information here.

Your Input Needed on OBI’s
Bioscience Ecosystem Inventory Survey

The Oregon Bioscience Incubator (OBI) is the state’s first and only bioscience-focused incubator. The multi-client company bioscience complex provides startups and scientists access to entrepreneurial mentoring, state-of-the-art bioscience facilities, meeting space, and shared equipment. While OBI currently provides free resources to the full community, we understand there are still some unmet needs and would like to learn more about how OBI can help fill resource gaps.

If you haven’t already, please take 15 minutes to fill out this survey to help assess the needs of the community by identifying additional resources needed. Thank you!

Life Science Innovation Northwest 2022

Life Science Innovation Northwest (LSINW) is the Pacific Northwest’s largest annual life science conference. This one-and-a-half day event held April 20-21 at the Washington State Convention Center will bring together investors, public and private life science organizations, research institutions, scientists, entrepreneurs, and the global health community to discuss and feature some of the most compelling life science breakthroughs of our time.

Apply to present at the Life Science Innovation Northwest 2022. Fast pitch, poster presentations, and, new this year, device showcase opportunities. Deadline to apply is March 15. More information here.

Breakout Ventures

Virtual Lunch & Learn Panel
Women in Leadership: Mind the Gap
March 15, 2022
12:00-1:00 PM
Register now!

Other Great Community Events

TiE Westside Pitch Competition 2022
March 10, 2022
4:00-7:00 PM
Hillsboro Cultural Arts Center
527 E Main St., Hillsboro
Ticket information

Science Talk ’22
March 23-25, 2022
Starts 9:00 AM
Tiffany Center and online
Get tickets here

TECHLANDIA Smart + Connected Series
Starts March 28, 2022
12:30-2:00 PM
Register here

Big News for Veana Therapeutics and Rewire Neuro!

OBI client companies Veana Therapeutics and Rewire Neuro each received one of 11 state grants from Business Oregon, designed to leverage their federal SBIR and STTR grant awards.

Veana Therapeutics‘ grant helps provide funding toward commercialization for its VT-101 oral medication for oncology patients.

Rewire Neuro received a grant award to develop a marketing strategy and hire additional staff for their AI-as-a-service platform in diagnostics and analysis.

See Business Oregon’s press release for more information.

More Exciting OBI Client Company Wins

Caregiven

• As of today we have 865 users signed on to our platform!  We have decreased our customer acquisition costs and churn significantly in recent months.
• In our latest product update we launched our affiliate program with 4 amazing companies who support caregivers:  Grief Coach, SilverBills, eFuneral, and Pinventory.  While Caregiven does not advertise to our users, we do offer referral links to our affiliate partners who offer users a discount and provide Caregiven with lead generation revenue.
• Alaska’s Dementia Action Collaborative profiled Caregiven as a valuable resource to its stakeholder community in their recent newsletter.
• Caregiven was selected to participate in the APIS Health Angel program.

Gamma Diagnostics, Inc.

• Our podcast with Expert Dojo was released online.
• MedRxiv published our study of gamma prime fibrinogen in COVID-19 patients.

Hemex Health

• Whitney Wilhardt has joined Hemex as PR and Marketing Specialist.

HTI

• Health Technology Innovations, Inc. was awarded an SBIR Phase II grant from the National Science Foundation to commercialize CryoDiscovery ™, a Cryo-EM Automation and Intelligence Platform for Drug Discovery.
• HTI is hiring AI/ML software development engineers, interns & post doc. Inquire to kumar@hti.ai.

Refeyn

• Launched a new product line specifically designed for gene therapy applications, called the SamuxMP. The Refeyn SamuxMP is a mass photometer optimized for adeno-associated virus (AAV) characterization and is an essential analytical tool for laboratories working with AAVs. The SamuxMP precisely measures the empty/full capsid ratio for AAVs of any serotype. SamuxMP mass photometry measurements are rapid and require very little sample.
• Brenda Watt has been promoted to Customer Success Manager in the Portland office, and Ritu is a new member of the Portland team.

Rewire Neuro

• Rewire Neuro is a finalist in the upcoming Pitch Oregon by TiE Oregon, in the Life Science category.
• Pitch Oregon will take place February 11, 2022.

StoneStable

• CSO and Founder Ken Stedman was interviewed by a local KATU reporter about the new SARS CoV-2 subvariant, which was then picked up and shown on Good Morning America.

Congratulations on all of your achievements!

OBI’s Mentor of the Month:
Mel Ellis

Mel Ellis joined the  OBI Mentoring Program in 2021 and quickly became a valuable member of our mentoring team. He has a BA from Stanford and an MBA from Harvard. His background includes ten years in professional venture capital in NYC and Boston. Mel was also the owner/operator of a small manufacturing business for 23 years, which he sold in 2014. He brings this valuable experience plus his positive, make-it-happen attitude to his role as a mentor, working with multiple mentees at a time. Thank you, Mel, for all you do!

NEW! Introducing AOBIO

Registration is now open for Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience (AOBIO). Open to bio startups at any stage of development, this program offers a four-week education series focused on investment-readiness led by successful local founders, and includes the opportunity to be considered for an angel investment of up to $300,000 at the end of the program. Presented by OEN in partnership with OHSU, Oregon Bioscience Incubator, and Oregon Bioscience Association, we highly recommend this program for the education and networking opportunities! Series kicks off February 23 at 8:30 a.m. Learn more and register here by February 22.

Calling all angel investors and the investor-curious! Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience (AOBIO) is an education and investment program designed to grow investment in local bio startups while helping new investors learn the sector. Units in a pooled investment fund start at $5K/each, and include the opportunity to join the startup education series, participate in due diligence, learn the ropes from experienced bioscience angel investors, get exposed to cutting edge innovation, and get networked in the bioscience entrepreneurial community. Investor info session to be held February 17th, 4:00 p.m., via Zoom. Sign up for more info here.

University Lab Partners Presents 4-Part SBIR Series

February 10 – Introduction to the NIH SBIR program
Learn about the SBIR program background, eligibility requirements, advantages of SBIR, programmatic structure, deciding whether to apply, challenges for first time applicants, and funding trends.

February 17 – How to Create a Competitive NIH SBIR Grant Application Part 1
Review prerequisites, high level planning, the importance of writing style, aligning an application with division priorities, engaging reviewers, application structure, the importance of advisory committees and academic collaborators, and a detailed approach to creating the Summary and Specific Aims sections, with examples.

February 24 – How to Create a Competitive NIH SBIR Application Part 2
Review the Research Strategy sections: Significance, Innovation and Approach. Budgeting will be discussed in detail. We will also review the importance of advisory committees, academic collaborators and the value of Preliminary Data. We will wrap up with the structure and requirements for the Commercialization section.

March 3 – Understanding the SBIR Review Process
Understanding the review process will enable you to: better understand your target audience, inform your grant creation process and interpret and respond to Summary Statements. We will also discuss what reviewers especially look for in your grant application.

More information and registration for these virtual programs here.

FDA’s New Approvals Offer Greater Treatment Options for Patients

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a total of 60 new drugs in 2021. A new report from the FDA catalogs 50 new approvals by the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). These novel medicines offer to transform many debilitating diseases, resulting in improved survival, better health outcomes, enhanced quality of life for patients with lupus nephritis, lung cancer, endometrial cancer, migraines and HIV.

Key takeaways from the report here.

Pitch Oregon

“In its 6th year, Pitch Oregon is TiE Oregon’s marquee event, attracting hundreds of entrepreneurs, mentors and investors each year. New this year, we are welcoming companies from around the Pacific Northwest to apply and applicants will compete for an equitable investment!

Applicants in the following categories will have the opportunity to receive an equitable investment. These applicants generate TTM of at least $250,000 or have raised external capital of at least $250,000:

Software / Tech Enabled:  Companies with services or products related to electronics, software, hardware, artificial intelligence, cloud services, etc.
Life Science:  Companies with services or products related to pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices, biomedical, telehealth, etc. OBI client company Rewire Neuro is a finalist in the Life Science category.
Clean Technology:  Companies that aim to improve environmental sustainability with products or services related to renewable energy, recycling, green transportation, sustainable manufacturing, etc.”

Additionally, Pitch Oregon has an Early-Stage category. OBI mentee Tonsil Tech is a finalist in this category.

You won’t want to miss these fun events – pitches take place on February 11, 2022 from 1:00-4:00, and the winners will be announced at the TiE Oregon Annual Awards Dinner that evening.

More information and registration at TiE Oregon.

Virtual Lunch & Learn: How Accelerators Can Help
Boost Your Startup – Founders’ Perspectives
February 16, 2022
12:00-1:00 PM
Register now

AOBIO Investment-Readiness Virtual
4-Week Education Series Begins
February 23, 2022
8:30-10 AM
Registration open through February 22

Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health
Virtual Happy Hour
March 3, 2022
5:00-6:30 PM
Register here

Virtual Lunch & Learn Panel:
Women in Leadership – Mind the Gap
March 15, 2022
12:00-1:00 PM
Save the date

Other Great Community Events

TAO Leadership Exchange:
A Conversation with Women Leaders in Tech
February 24, 2022
9:00-10:30 AM
Register here

OTBC Social Media Marketing
Virtual Workshop with Allison Tivnon
February 24, 2022
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
Register here

TiE Westside Pitch Competition 2022
March 10, 2022
4:00-7:00 PM
Hillsboro Cultural Arts Center
527 E Main St., Hillsboro
Ticket information

Happy New Year!

Thank you for your support of OBI & OTRADI over the past year.
We wish you an abundance of health, happiness, and success in 2022.

2021 OBI Client Company Recap

• OBI & OTRADI alumnus Absci was listed at #8 by the Portland Business Journal ofthe largest bioscience and health tech companies in Oregon and SW Washington.
• Announced completion of $125 million crossover financing to advance AI-powered synthetic biology drug creation platform. Read press release. 
• Absci made its debut on the NASDAQ (ticker symbol ABSI) on Thursday, July 22, and founder Sean McClain and his team rang the closing bell. 
• Announced new and expanded collaboration with Merck, with payments and fees of up to $610 million.

• OBI & OTRADI alumnus Aronora was listed #31 by the Portland Business Journal on their list of the top 37 largest bioscience and health technology companies in Oregon and SW Washington.
• In March upon graduation from the OBI, Aronora relocated their lab and office from OTRADI’s incubator in the Willamette Wharf building, to a brand-new high rise downtown where they have double the office space, a private wet lab, and conference room. 
• Aronora reports positive topline data from their phase 2 clinical trial of recombinant antibody therapeutic AB023 in hemodialysis patients. This data was presented at the XXIX Congress of the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasias in July. See Aronora’s press release here.

• Buchanan Science joined the OBI as a client company in 2021.
• Buchanan Science is now in the process of testing approximately 100 blinded serum samples from persons who received vaccination against COVID-19. The sera were previously tested with a CLIA-approved instrumented assay from ProMega that quantitatively measured the antibody levels to SARS-CoV-2 spike.
• The Buchanan Science BeSure Double Check Rapid test is designed to enable home users to check their antibody levels to RBD, the portion of the viral spike that attaches to human ace2 receptors as an initial step in infection. Persons with high antibody levels to RBD are able to avoid infection due to SARS-CoV-2, or if infected have only minimal symptoms and avoid hospitalization or death.
• Preliminary indications are that the rapid test is correlating well with protective antibody levels to RBD, and they are currently seeking increased numbers of sera from non-vaccinated individuals who have also not had COVID-19 infections to quantitate test specificity.

• Caregiven participated in Australian CareFactor Pitch Day 2021 on March 22, part of the Information Technology Across Care virtual summit.
• First public release launched in app stores April 15th.
• Closed pre-seed with a total of $700K raised from Rogue Venture Partners.
• Was a 2021 Oregon Technology Awards finalist.
• Semi-finalist for Aging 2.0’s Global Innovation Search.
• Candice Smith was interviewed by the HITLab for their Women’s Health Tech Wednesday forum.
• Highlighted in an article titled “Looking to the Future of Insurance.”
• Presented “Shark Tank” style to attendees at the ISCPA conference.
• Finalist in Aging 2.0’s Global Innovation Search.
• Finalist in the ACORD InsurTech Innovation Challenge.
• Selected to participate in the American Heart Association of OR/SW Washington’s EmPOWERED to Serve program.
• Awarded the TAO Start-Up of the Year award in the pre-revenue category.
• Candice Smith was a guest on the Aging in Portland podcast.
• Chief Revenue Officer, Anthony Mitchell and Candice had the opportunity to present at the ACORD InsurTech Innovation Challenge NY.
• Anthony also co-hosted a webinar on The Future of Value Adds in Insurance with an insurance luminary, Jason Gross.
• Presented at CareTech presented by the Louisville Healthcare CEO’s Council and Aging 2.0, a global search for innovations that improve the patient or member experience.
• Awarded the second place grant from the American Heart Association’s EmPOWERED to Serve program ($30K), sponsored by the American Heart Association of Oregon & SW Washington.
• Kicked off the first phase of their first pilot with a national palliative care provider. They will be using Caregiven to expedite the health outcomes their nurses already accomplish, and are including Caregiven as a differentiator for their company in proposals to major health systems nationally.
• Had over a dozen calls with insurance carriers about Q1 pilots and are under NDA and working on LOIs with several.
• Attended InsureTech Connect in Las Vegas, sponsored by the Global Insurance Accelerator, and had many wonderful calls with customers and investors alike. Notable conversations occurred with Unum, Northwestern Mutual, MS&AD, Ethos Life, Assurity, and more.  
• Networking at the event resulted in Candice Smith being asked to speak at the Society of Actuaries ElderTech Summit in December and to be interviewed for an upcoming book focused on the future of insurance.  Additionally, 2 podcasts featuring Caregiven were recently released:  Woman to Woman Podcast and The Heart of Hospice.
• Successfully completed Session #1 of the Creative Destruction Lab – an invite only program with the goal of helping start-ups “build something massive.”  Of the 20 initial companies, Caregiven was 1 of 14 asked to return for Session #2 in December. Again were successful in Round #2 of the Creative Destruction Lab and have been invited to participate again in February.  Their lead mentor this round comes from Healthy Minds Innovations.  Candice said is amazing to be selected to collaborate with a team that has a direct connection with the Dalai Lama and is committed to using digital tools and modern neuroscience to improve the human experience.
• Successfully launched their first co-branded experience with Spivey Insurance.

• Circumvent Pharmaceuticals are co-Principle Investigators on a NIH SBIR grant for the study of “Development of N-tert-(Butyl)hydroxylamine (NtBuHA) as a therapeutic agent for treating infantile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis (INCL).” INCL is a form of Batten Disease.

• CytoImage founder Tania Vu presented at the international Innovation Stage at BIO Digital 2021.
• Pitched at an Oregon Venture Fund pitch event at the OBI in October.

• Gamma Therapeutics is now Gamma Diagnostics, Inc.
• David Eastman retired as CEO, they hired Ajay Nair from Perth, Australia as their new CEO, and he hired Chris Venter, also from Perth, as their Chief Finance Officer.
• Discovered that their GammaCoeur diagnostic blood test for cardiovascular disease is extremely elevated in COVID-19 patients and predicts the need for hospitalized patients to need extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) in order not to suffocate, and it predicts death from COVID-19. They now have a provisional patent on this I.P. that also protects the use of the test as a companion diagnostic for the administration of dexamethasone in COVID-19 patients.
• Accepted into California’s Expert Dojo accelerator cohort. For companies accepted into the program, Expert Dojo invests $100,000, provides an 8-week training program that trains the members of the company in all aspects of business, and introduces them to investors and mentors.
• The Department of Defense’s Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program has a Technology/Therapeutic Development Award, and invited Gamma Diagnostics to submit a full proposal to develop GammaCoeur as a companion diagnostic to track COVID-19 disease severity. They submitted the grant on Sept. 2.
• One of 8 semi-finalists for the Bend Venture Conference in the Impact category.
• What is Gamma Prime Fibrinogen (GFP)? Dr. David Farrell, Professor of Surgery at OHSU and founder and CSO at Gamma Diagnostics, shared his poster and abstract at the American Heart Association meeting. The results show that their ELISA for GFP shows significantly higher levels in COVID-19 patients who died or required extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), which has several important clinical implications relative to administration of anticoagulants and steroids. Read more here in the American Heart Association Circulation.

• Hemex Health’s Gazelle device was highlighted in a 360Dx article.
• Hemex reports: “On Saturday, Feb 27, Ruaraka Neema hospital in Nairobi held a public screening event for families to bring their kids in for sickle cell screening using Gazelle. The team was able to run most of the samples they collected on one day, the rest on the following Monday morning. Running almost 50 samples in one day is what Gazelle was designed to do, and we’re so proud to see this helping the kids who need it most now.”
• The Portland Business Journal listed the largest bioscience and health tech companies in Oregon and SW Washington. Hemex Health was listed at #19.
• In a recent clinical study conducted in Brazil and published in the Malaria Journal, Gazelle was shown to outperform current RDTs (Rapid Diagnostic Tests) in detection of P. vivax malaria. P. vivax, the most widely dispersed species of malaria, tends to be more difficult to detect with RDTs due to typically low levels of parasitemia. They are excited to share the results of the study with you in their press release.
• Won a Phase I grant to add multispectral imaging to its Hb Variant test to lower the limit of detection and allow the test to screen newborns for sickle cell and other hemoglobin variants.
• Excited to announce a new partnership with Cureleads for distribution of Gazelle in the Middle East, Turkey and North Africa.
• CEO Patti White, was a keynote speaker in the OHSU Invent-a-thon Post-Hack.
• Released our newborn screening capacity for sickle cell anemia in May.
• Selected as a 2021 TiE50 winner as part of the TiECon program for their Gazelle reader diagnostic device. Press release here.
• Officially launched their newborn release! Gazelle is now able to diagnose newborns for sickle cell disease before they even leave the hospital. Check out the press release.
• With their product design and engineering partner Tata Elxsi, the Gazelle Reader won the Social Impact Solution of the Year award at the 2021 NASSCOM Engineering & Innovation Excellence Awards in India!
• In a recent P. vivax clinical study, Gazelle demonstrated higher sensitivity than the only FDA-approved malaria rapid diagnostic test. Press release here.
• Featured in the Oregon Lottery spotlight.
• Patti White was on the speaker panel of the Oregon Pediatric Innovation Event, Powered by CTIP, on September 1.
• Featured in the September issue of the Elevate Capital newsletter.
• Gazelle was featured in an NIH article: Future of medicine: Lab-on-a-chip devices starting to make an impact.
• Pitched at an Oregon Venture Fund pitch event at the OBI in October.
• A clinical study featuring Gazelle’s sickle cell disease test was featured in Frontiers in Medicine. The researchers found that Gazelle’s speed, accuracy and ease-of-use made it ideal for use in low-resource settings with a high prevalence of the disease.
• In November, Hemex introduced an enhancement to its Hb Variant test that enables testing for beta thalassemia in addition to sickle cell disease. Gazelle is now the only point-of-care test for beta thalassemia on the market. Additionally, they were able to update our installed base automatically over the Cloud. Here is the link to the press release that explains more.
• Hemex Health has been invited to pitch to Inflect Health in January, 2022.

• HTI has announced that Dr. Jeff King has joined their team as Senior Advisor.
• Dr. Craig Yoshioka joined HTI as Senior Advisor for cryo-EM. Read their press release for background information on Dr. Yoshioka and HTI’s innovative cryo-EM technology.
• HTI’s CryoDiscovery™: A Machine Learning Platform for Automated Cryo-EM Class Selection poster was selected by One World Cryo-EM conference on March 10-11.
• CryoDiscovery™: A Machine Learning Platform for Automated Cryo-EM Class Selection for Single Particle Analysis in Structural Biology paper has been accepted by the Microscopy and Microanalysis 2021 conference (M&M), to be presented in August 2021.
• HTI has also been accepted as a Premier Member into the NVIDIA Inception Program for AI and data science startups.
• CryoDiscovery (TM): A Machine Learning Platform for Automated Cryo-electron Microscopy 2D Class Selection paper was presented at the ACA (American Crystallographic Association) conference in Aug 2021.
• Became a member of the Nvidia Inception and Intel AI Builder program.
• Pfizer is beta testing HTI’s CryoDiscovery ™ – A Cryo-EM Automation & Intelligence Platform for Drug Discovery.
• Nimbus Wadget, Inc signed another service agreement to start a cryo-EM 3-D structure determination project.
• Signed MSAs (master service agreement) with Agios, Flare Therapeutics, Atavistik, and IDEAYA Biosciences for cryo-EM services.
• CryoDiscovery ™ was presented at the 4th Annual CryoNET Symposium, October 18-19th 2021.
• Pitched at an Oregon Venture Fund pitch event at the OBI in October.

• Inherent Targeting was awarded a fast-track SBIR grant from the NCI at the NIH worth a total of $2.25M to complete lead selection and preclinical testing for investigational new drug approval of their nerve-specific fluorescence guided surgery contrast agents.
• Awarded a SBIR matching grant from Business Oregon worth $82k to cover IP and business development expenses.
• Presented at the Angel Capital Association Summit Innovation Showcase, sponsored by the Oregon Bioscience Association.
• CEO Connor Barth was awarded OHSU’s Early Career Innovator Award. The Early Career Innovator Award is presented to an OHSU employee such as a student, post-doctoral fellow, medical resident or someone else early in their professional career who possesses a passion for innovation and developing technologies to solve real-world problems. They work closely with the innovation ecosystems within and outside of OHSU to prepare their innovations for commercial success.
• Connor Barth presented at BIO Digital 2021 Innovation Stage.
• Recently awarded an SBIR Phase 1 grant from the NSF.
• Represented OHSU startups and present at the Pacific Northwest Startup Showcase on Oct 12.

• Izon has recently released two new consumables products to the market. These kits will further establish Izon as an industry leader in extracellular vesicle analysis. Please see product pages: qEV RNA Extraction Kit, qEV Concentration Kit
• Henry Scheffer joined as our new Research Associate, Brennan Van Deren joined as a part time Quality Assurance Intern, and Anthony McNeil came onboard as Applications Scientist.
• Izon Science is excited to announce the release of its Gen 2 qEV SEC columns as well as its new column size, the qEV1. Izon is confident these columns will perform better in nearly all performance metrics important to the extracellular vesicle community including higher total EV yields, lower levels of contaminating proteins, and higher EV purity as measured by # of EVs/ug of protein when compared to their legacy columns.

• Madorra participated in the Femtech track of the McKinsey Early Stage Investor Conference and was featured in Avestria’s Under the Microscope blog.
• Selected from a pool of more than 100 applicants to present at Cooley’s Capital Call fundraising event.
• Mentioned in the Femtech Insider interview with Portfolia Founder, Trish Costello.
• Featured in HitLab’s Women’s Health Wednesdays interview.
• Exciting news! The FDA has granted Madorra breakthrough device designation! Read about it here.
• Mentioned in this great piece in Fast Company underlining the huge opportunity in perimenopause.
• Won the FemAging pitch competition in May and were featured in their report on the space.
• Featured in an article about technology for menopause.
• We were a featured panelist in Springboard’s Women’s Health Innovation forum.
• Founder Holly Rockweiler is a Ferolyn Fellow this year. Here’s a write up in the Fogarty Institute newsletter all about her participation in the program so far.
• Featured in the September issue of the Elevate Capital newsletter.
• Proud and excited to be a part of the inaugural class of Series P!
• Madorra’s press release about its FDA Breakthrough Status was picked up by several industry publications (MassDevice, Femtech Insider, and Medtech Dive).
• Featured on an OSHU Future of Femtech panel.
• Interviewed as part of Accenture’s Women in Life Sciences program.

• OmnEcoil Instruments‘s Dr. Fergus Coakley, inventor of the OmnEcoil instrument, was an author of a November 2021 research article in the American Journal of Roentgenology, entitled, “ In-Bore Versus Fusion MRI-Targeted Biopsy of PI-RADS Category 4 and 5 Lesions: A Retrospective Comparative Analysis Using Propensity Score Weighting.“

• OBI & OTRADI alumnus Oncol Drug Discovery Service made substantial progress in developing optimized SOP for generating CART against targeted cancer. Generated two targeted CART lines of high potency and purity (93-96% purity).

• ProMedix, Inc. had abstracts from their clinical trials selected from a national pool of applications for presentation at both the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine and Pediatric Academic Society national meetings in spring 2021.
• Awarded a $30K grant from OHSU Technology Transfer.
• ProMedix has a new publication on “Point-of-Care Capillary Refill Technology Improves Accuracy of Peripheral Perfusion Assessment,” in Frontiers in Medicine.
• Competitively selected for the mHUB MedTech Incubator in Chicago. Read mHub’s press release.
• ProMedix is developing HydraSense to provide a rapid, accurate, and noninvasive assessment at the clinical bedside or remote care setting to help diagnose sepsis and monitor patient decline and response to treatment.

• Qtonics joined the OBI as a client company in 2021.
• Will be moving into a private office within the OBI in February, 2022.

• Learn about mass photometry as a revolutionary new way to analyze molecules in a series of videos on Refeyn’s YouTube channel.

• Rewire Neuro‘s Pipsqueak AI version 5.5.0 has been released. It features new detection models, smoother model customization, and better co-localization analysis.
• Won a Cougar Cage grant from WSU (it is their version of Shark Tank).
• Won Angel Oregon Tech 2021 and received a $125,000 equity investment from AOTech investors. Out of 90 companies who went through the program, nine were selected to pitch at the final AOTech at TechFestNW event on May 21, and Rewire Neuro was the judges’ top pick.
• Received funding from Elevate Capital’s Oregon Gap Fund.
• Pitched at an Oregon Venture Fund pitch event at the OBI in October.
• Awarded a Phase II SBIR from the NIH. This two-year grant will help them develop additional cell detection capabilities and integrate their AI platform into partnering diagnostics devices and applications.
• Rewire Neuro is a finalist in the upcoming Pitch Oregon by TiE Oregon, in the Life Science category. Pitch Oregon will take place February 11, 2022.

• RxHomeTest has been invited to pitch to Inflect Health in January, 2022.

• Senju Pharmaceutical has announced marketing approval for the ophthalmic VEGF inhibitor “Ranibizumab BS Intravitreal Injection Kit 10 mg/mL.
• In December 2021, announced the launch of a new treatment for Ranibizumab. See press release.

• Sirona Dx launched a rapid saliva-based PCR COVID-19 testing service utilizing advanced microfluidics.
• Dr. Nasry Yassa, CEO, and Andrew Brown, Chief Commercial Officer, presented at Fluidigm Virtual Mass Cytometry Investor Day. Listen to the webcast here.

• The Portland Business Journal listed the largest bioscience and health tech companies in Oregon and SW Washington. Sonivate Medical was listed at #33.

• OBI & OTRADI alumnus Sparrow Pharmaceuticals‘ novel approach to the treatment of Cushing’s syndrome was featured by the Endocrine Society in their membership newsletter Endocrine News.
• Sparrow received a May Proceed letter from FDA for a Phase 2 clinical trial in patients with ACTH-dependent Cushing’s syndrome, which will open to patients in January. Press release here.

• StoneStable, Inc. had patents issued in Canada and India.
• Successfully demonstrated that silica-treated adenovirus is significantly more resistant to freeze-thaw cycles, which can be a big improvement over current vaccines.
• Currently looking to raise its seed round.

• SUTUREGARD shipped the most HEMIGARD ever before in Q1 2021.
• Teamed with one of the leading foot and ankle surgeons in the world, Dr Mark Myerson. He has now enrolled 8 colleagues across the country and is initiating a clinical trial of HEMIGARD in ankle replacement/fusion surgery.
• Attended the Chicago Lower Extremity Surgery Symposium in April as invited speakers, and we had the HEMIGARD successfully demo’d on live video by the Symposium Chairman, Dr. Edgardo Rodriguez-Collazo.
• Named a Top 10 Innovation by Podiatry Today, a leading trade journal. This is unsolicited, unlike some trade publication lists which are paid for. SUTUREGARD is featured at the end of the article; they saved the best for last!
• The Veteran’s Administration is now ordering HEMIGARD. The U.S. Veteran population has a high incidence of wound problems and they will be making a big impact in reducing wound complications and improving limb salvage efforts. The HEMIGARD is a great tool to not only speed the surgical closure, reduce the need for additional deep sutures, but also to support the healing through the difficult postoperative period when the foot may swell and the wound may open (dehisce).
• Continuing to gain traction with Q2 2021 sales highest ever, and 50% growth in revenue from Q2 to Q3, with a record month to start Q4.
• SUTUREGARD and HEMIGARD products were placed on the MEDLINE catalog and have now been ordered by multiple hospitals through that pathway.
• CEO Dr. Dan Ladizinsky gave two plenary session talks at the American Podiatric Medical Association meeting in Boston in October, highlighting that HEMIGARD closure of diabetic foot amputations has reduced wound dehiscence and subsequent need for above or below knee amputation by over 80%. This improvement in outcomes is especially important since diabetic foot amputations have gone up in frequency post COVID due to poor access to necessary preventative care and to vascular complications of COVID increasing the risk of wound complications.

• Synergic Medical Technologies is enrolling in clinical trials for Parkinson’s Disease through Oregon Neurology in Springfield, Oregon. The trial is for a non-invasive vibrotactile stimulator whose purpose is to address some of the motor issues associated with Parkinson’s disease.

• Thaena, Inc. joined the OBI as a client company in 2021.
• Joined the OBI mentoring cohort in Summer-Fall 2021 and renewed for the Winter-Spring 2022 cohort.
• Held a microbiome symposium in December, 2021 about microbial ecosystems, metabolites, and their impact on human health.

• Veana Therapeutics was awarded a Phase I SBIR grant from the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute to conduct proof-of concept studies of its lead product, VIMO in combination with the monoclonal antibody trastuzumab (an equivalent of Herceptin).
• Closed a seed round with a total of $1.25M raised.
• Veana is pleased to report that the first patient in the Phase Ib clinical trial of the company’s oral drug, VIMO in combination with Herceptin has been dosed!

• Velanidi Technologies closed a pre-seed round of funding.

• Vir Biotechnology and partner GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced a joint collaboration to produce an investigational monoclonal antibody for the treatment of COVID-19. The treatment, called sotrovimab, is an FDA EUA-authorized monoclonal antibody which is administered by infusion in the early stages of a COVID-19 infection in eligible patients.
• Vir and GSK recently announced a $1 billion U.S. government contract to purchase sotrovimab, delivered mid-December. Vir Bio and GSK also have other governmental purchase agreements through the European Commission.
• Preclinical studies indicate that sotrovimab retains activity against the full combination of spike proteins on the recently discovered Omicron variant. Read press release here.

• Virogenomics Bio Development (VBD) was listed at #35 by the Portland Business Journal for the largest bioscience and health tech companies in Oregon and SW Washington.

Congratulations to our amazing OBI Client Companies!

OBI Welcomed New Startups in 2021

Click here to learn more about our new companies

New OBI Mentoring Cohort Begins

We are pleased to announce that January 3, 2021 was the start date for OBI’s newest Mentoring Program cohort. Seventeen mentees and fourteen mentors will work together in pairs and threes for 6 months. 

MENTORS
Lynn Sheehan, Guillaume Lenormand, Daren Connor, Mel Ellis, Katie Rubino, Sheila Ramerman, Michael Phillips, Anoop Pal, Shannon Heizenrader, Shelly Sweeney, Scott Filer, Keith Daellenbach, Josh Ellison, and Mark Bloom.

MENTEES
Priscilla Cheng, Alan Kadish, Alexander Honkala, Sandhiprakash Bhide, Christine Tataru, Mohammad Hissourou III, Alex Tataru, Cory Szybala, Vickie Driver, Manreet Brar, Marco Barcella, Andrea Sommer, Daniel Forbes, Jessy Imdieke, Alison Carrigg, Sydney Quinton-Cox Forbes, and Gus Lawrence. 

Best of luck to the Winter-Spring OBI Mentoring Program cohort! Learn more about the OBI Mentoring Program.

Johnson & Johnson QuickFire Challenges

Johnson & Johnson Innovations/JLABS has some exciting opportunities coming up soon:

• Immunology Innovations QuickFire Challenge: Precision Medicine in Immune-Mediated Disease
• Nurses Innovate QuickFire Challenge: Healthcare Transformation through Nurse-Led Tech
• Food Allergy Prevention QuickFire Challenge
• Improving Detection of Neurotoxicity in Immunotherapies

Learn more about these QuickFire Challenges here.

New Year, New Job?

Or perhaps a new employee for your Oregon company or organization. If you are hiring or looking for a new role, check out the current listings, and post your open position or resume to the OBI Job Board. It’s easy and free to use.

New Year, New Ideas…
We’d Love to Hear from You in ’22!

Do you have an idea for an OBI Lunch & Learn topic, Happy Hour theme, or Workshop suggestion? Or maybe you know of an awesome speaker (maybe even yourself!). We have a new button at the top of our Events Calendar for you to submit your program ideas and speaker suggestions. And as always, if you have an event you would like us to promote on our calendar, there’s a button for that, too. We’d love to hear from you in ’22!

Missed a Lunch & Learn?

No worries! We have video recordings of most of our Lunch & Learns available in two places: on our website and on our OBI YouTube channel. Now you have 24/7 access to the OBI programs you may have missed. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for notification of new videos uploaded (about once per month).

OHSU Innovation and Commercialization Internship Program

Applications for this real-world educational experience learning technology transfer, business development, or patent law are being accepted until January 16, 2022. Learn more and apply now!

Upcoming Events

OBI Events

Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health
Virtual Happy Hour
January 13, 2022
5:00-6:30 PM
Register here

OBI Virtual Lunch & Learn:
OHSU Center for Experimental Therapeutics
January 19, 2022
12:00-1:00 PM
Register here

Community Events

TAO 2022 Legislative Session Preview
January 18, 2022
9:00-10:30 AM
Register here

TiE Oregon Presents: Pitch Oregon 2021
February 11, 2022
12:30-4:00 PM
Register here

Seasons Greetings from OBI & OTRADI

All the best to you and yours this holiday season and in the new year!

Vir Biotechnology Tackles COVID-19

Big news in the treatment of COVID-19! Earlier this year, OBI client company Vir Biotechnology and partner GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced a joint collaboration to produce an investigational monoclonal antibody for the treatment of COVID-19. The treatment, called sotrovimab, is an FDA EUA-authorized monoclonal antibody which is administered by infusion in the early stages of a COVID-19 infection in eligible patients. Last month, they announced a $1 billion U.S. government contract to purchase sotrovimab, to be delivered this week. Vir Bio and GSK also have other governmental purchase agreements through the European Commission. Preclinical studies indicate that sotrovimab retains activity against the full combination of spike proteins on the recently discovered Omicron variant.

Press releases for these announcements can be found here and here.

Congratulations Vir Bio!

More Exciting OBI Client Company Wins

Rewire Neuro

• Rewire Neuro is a finalist in the upcoming Pitch Oregon by TiE Oregon, in the Life Science category.
• Pitch Oregon will take place February 11, 2022.

Hemex Health

• In November, Hemex introduced an enhancement to its Hb Variant test that enables testing for beta thalassemia in addition to sickle cell disease. Gazelle is now the only point-of-care test for beta thalassemia on the market.
• Additionally, we were able to update our installed base automatically over the Cloud.
• Here is the link to our press release that explains more.

ProMedix, Inc.

• ProMedix was recently accepted into Chicago’s mHub accelerator. Read mHub’s press release.
• ProMedix is developing HydraSense to provide a rapid, accurate, and noninvasive assessment at the clinical bedside or remote care setting to help diagnose sepsis and monitor patient decline and response to treatment.

Gamma Diagnostics, Inc.

• What is Gamma Prime Fibrinogen? Dr. David Farrell, Professor of Surgery at OHSU and founder and CSO at Gamma Diagnostics, Inc., shared his poster and abstract at the American Heart Association meeting.
• COVID-19 patients can develop extremely high levels of gamma prime fibrinogen (GPF), which has several important clinical implications relative to administration of anticoagulants and steroids.
• Read more here in the American Heart Association Circulation.

SUTUREGARD Medical, Inc.

• We noted 50% growth in revenue from Q2 to Q3, with a record month to start Q4.   
• Our SUTUREGARD and HEMIGARD products were placed on the MEDLINE catalog and have now been ordered by multiple hospitals through that pathway. 
• CEO Dr. Dan Ladizinsky gave two plenary session talks at the American Podiatric Medical Association meeting in Boston in October, highlighting that HEMIGARD closure of diabetic foot amputations has reduced wound dehiscence and subsequent need for above or below knee amputation by over 80%. This improvement in outcomes is especially important since diabetic foot amputations have gone up in frequency post COVID due to poor access to necessary preventative care and to vascular complications of COVID increasing the risk of wound complications.

Congratulations on all of your achievements!

OBI’s Mentor of the Month:
Sheila Ramerman

Sheila Ramerman is one of OBI’s helpful volunteer mentors. With a background and education in Medical Laboratory and Hospital Administration, Sheila is a wealth of knowledge for our OBI mentees. Her primary areas of expertise are in FDA regulatory requirements and quality system basics. Sheila has extensive experience in designing and performing IVD clinical studies. She has worked in multiple start ups, and as a consultant to start ups. Sheila started in product development for an IVD company (point of care diagnostic) and worked into clinical studies, then in regulatory affairs, and into quality systems. Since then she has worked in regulatory/quality/clinical roles in other start ups. Her colleagues describe her as having a practical, pragmatic approach – what is needed now, and what’s needed in the future. They also appreciate her ability to understand the requirements and apply them and adapt as needed to the specific situation.

Thank you Sheila, for helping OBI mentees navigate the complex world of FDA regulation in the OBI Mentoring Program.

Hiring or Seeking?
Post it on OBI’s Job Board 

OBI has launched a Job Board where you can easily list your organization’s open positions. Click here to post your open positions. We’ll approve it on our end, and it will be posted for 30 days (and it’s renewable too).

And, if you’re a job seeker and would like to have your resume reviewed by recruiters in the community, please upload your resume to the “submit resume” section of our job board.

PCC Bioscience Technology Information Sessions

Spread the word to interested persons to attend a Portland Community College info session to learn about the bioscience industry, the BIT program, and the admissions process.

Please review the info slides on this page and RSVP for an upcoming session. (An RSVP is required in order to provide you with the information to join the online session in Zoom.)

Questions? Contact a program advisor.

Life Sciences Trend Report

CBRE’s most recent U.S. Life Sciences Trend Report now available. A couple of key takeaways:

• The market has never been stronger – All-time highs reached in funding, job growth, demand for lab space and new construction.
• The near-term outlook remains bright – Data trends and sentiment from the field suggest continued active market conditions over the next year. 

Download the full PDF report here, compliments of our friends at CBRE.

Pitch Oregon 2021

“In its 6th year, Pitch Oregon is TiE Oregon’s marquee event, attracting hundreds of entrepreneurs, mentors and investors each year. New this year, we are welcoming companies from around the Pacific Northwest to apply and applicants will compete for an equitable investment!

Applicants in the following categories will have the opportunity to receive an equitable investment. These applicants generate TTM of at least $250,000 or have raised external capital of at least $250,000:

Software / Tech Enabled:  Companies with services or products related to electronics, software, hardware, artificial intelligence, cloud services, etc.
Life Science:  Companies with services or products related to pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices, biomedical, telehealth, etc.
Clean Technology:  Companies that aim to improve environmental sustainability with products or services related to renewable energy, recycling, green transportation, sustainable manufacturing, etc.”

OBI client company Rewire Neuro is a finalist in the Life Science category.

Additionally, Pitch Oregon has an Early-Stage category.

You won’t want to miss these fun events – pitches take place on February 11, 2022 from 1:00-4:00, and the winners will be announced at the TiE Oregon Annual Awards Dinner that evening.

More information and registration at TiE Oregon.

OHSU Innovates 2021 Impact Report

Oregon Health & Science University has just published their OHSU Innovates 2021 Impact Report. They highlight some of the innovations to come out of OHSU, showing resilience and strength during a particularly challenging time. Special shout-outs to OBI graduate Aronora, and current OBI client companies ProMedix, Inherent Targeting, and Vir Biotechnology, all OHSU spinouts featured in this comprehensive report.

Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health
Virtual Happy Hour
January 13, 2022
5:00-6:30 PM
Register now!

Lunch & Learn: Center for Experimental Therapeutics –
Translating Discoveries from Lab to Clinic
January 19, 2022
12:00-1:00 PM
Register now!

Other Great Community Events

OSU Advantage Accelerator Webinar:
Intellectual Property Essentials for Startups
December 16, 2021
12:00-1:00 PM
Register here

Zapproved Seminar: Turning Awareness
into Action with Dr. Dana Crawford
January 12, 2022
12:00-1:00 PM
Register here

OBI Client Company Wins

Madorra

• Our press release about our FDA Breakthrough Status was picked up by several industry publications (MassDevice, Femtech Insider, and Medtech Dive).
• We were featured on an OSHU Future of Femtech panel.
• We were also interviewed as part of Accenture’s Women in Life Sciences program.

Caregiven

• We attended InsureTech Connect in Las Vegas, sponsored by the Global Insurance Accelerator, and had many wonderful calls with customers and investors alike.  Notable conversations occurred with Unum, Northwestern Mutual, MS&AD, Ethos Life, Assurity, and more.
• Networking at the event resulted in Candice Smith being asked to speak at the Society of Actuaries ElderTech Summit in December and to be interviewed for an upcoming book focused on the future of insurance.  Additionally, 2 podcasts featuring Caregiven were released last month:  Woman to Woman Podcast and The Heart of Hospice.
• We successfully completed Session #1 of the Creative Destruction Lab – an invite only program with the goal of helping start-ups “build something massive”.  Of the 20 initial companies, Caregiven was 1 of 14 asked to return for Session #2 in December.

Hemex Health

• Gazelle was featured in an NIH article: Future of medicine: Lab-on-a-chip devices starting to make an impact.
• A clinical study featuring Gazelle’s sickle cell disease test was featured in Frontiers in Medicine. The researchers found that Gazelle’s speed, accuracy and ease-of-use made it ideal for use in low-resource settings with a high prevalence of the disease.

ProMedix

• We were competitively selected for the mHUB MedTech Incubator in Chicago.

Izon

• Izon Science is excited to announce the release of our Gen 2 qEV SEC columns as well as our new column size, the qEV1.
• Izon is confident these columns will perform better in nearly all performance metrics important to the extracellular vesicle community including higher total EV yields, lower levels of contaminating proteins, and higher EV purity as measured by # of EVs/ug of protein when compared to our legacy columns.

HTI

• Master Service Agreement (MSA) signed with Flare Therapeutics, Atavistik, and IDEAYA Biosciences for Cryo-EM services.

Congratulations on all of your achievements!

OBI’s Mentor of the Month:
Tanya Leavy

Tanya Leavy, JD, is one of our wonderful volunteer mentors. She is experienced in the field of intellectual property law, with a specialty in patent law, practicing in the patent space for over a decade. Her law degree is from the Fordham Law school.

Tanya also has a Ph.D. in chemical biology, with a specialty in organic chemistry, from the University of California at Berkeley. She has worked with a number of startup companies in the biotechnology area to provide strategic patent guidance to help them to develop and protect their innovations.

Her colleagues describe Tanya as hardworking, with attention to detail, a collaborative work style, and a creative problem solver.

Thank you, Tanya, for contributing to the success of our mentees!

Hiring or Seeking?
Post it on OBI’s Job Board 

We’re excited to announce that OBI has launched a Job Board, and we’d love to list your organization’s open positions. Click here to post your open positions.

And, if you’re a job seeker and would like to have your resume reviewed by recruiters in the community, please upload your resume to the “submit resume” section of our job board.

2021 Tech Pay Data Now Available

Milliman recently released the results of the 30th annual Northwest Technology Compensation Survey featuring updated pay data on more than 200 technology positions, objectively and confidentially compiled from 92 major Northwest Technology employers. The survey results include expanded data on salary trends, turnover, benefit costs, telecommuting, sign-on bonus, hot skills, compensation program elements, and more.

• Salaries for tech roles have risen between 3-8% based on title and seniority
• Two of the top six roles at technology companies/within technology organizations are for HR leaders
• In the 25 years since the NW Tech Compensation Survey started, the entry level salary for a software engineer has gone from $35K to 76K+

To access the full survey results, click here. TAO members get a $50 discount if they use the code TAO2021.

Medication Adherence Saves Medicare up to $46.6B

A recent Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) study found that medication use is improving among seniors and vulnerable beneficiary populations. Better adherence to medicines used to treat common chronic conditions such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes is estimated to have saved the Medicare program between $27B and $46.6B in avoided health care costs between 2013 and 2018.

Virtual Lunch & Learn: The Three Sectors
Where Digital is Transforming Patient Care
November 17, 2021
12:00-1:00 PM
Register now!

Virtual Lunch & Learn: Utilizing Value Assessments
to Determine Clinical & Cost Effectiveness
December 1, 2021
12:00-1:00 PM
Register now!

Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health
Virtual Happy Hour
December 9, 2021
5:00-6:30 PM
Register now!

Other Great Community Events

Keiretsu Forum Investor Capital Expo
November 10-11 and 17-18, 2021
Registration details here

Biotech Summit 2021
Biomarker and the Promise of Precision Medicine
November 12, 2021
1:30-3:30 PM
Register here

Partners in Diversity Say Hey!~Virtual
November 16, 2021
4:30-6:30 PM
Register here

Technology Association of Oregon:
Health Tech Summit
November 15-16, 2021
8:30 AM-1:00 PM
More information here

Oregon Entrepreneurs Network:
OEN Awards 2021 – FUTUREPROOF
November 18, 2021
5:00-8:00 PM
More information here

Hiring or Seeking? OBI has a Job Board!

We’re excited to announce that OBI has launched a Job Board, and we’d love to list any open positions your respective organizations may have. Click here to post your open positions.

And, if you’re a job seeker and would like to have your resume reviewed by recruiters in the community, please upload your resume to the “submit resume” section of our job board.

OBI Client Company Wins

Inherent Targeting

• We have been selected to represent OHSU startups and present at the Pacific Northwest Startup Showcase on Oct 12.

HTI

• Pfizer is beta testing HTI’s CryoDiscovery ™ – A cryo-EM Automation & Intelligence Platform for Drug Discovery.
• Nimbus Wadget, Inc signed another service agreement to start a cryo-em 3-D structure determination project.
• HTI is looking for machine learning software developers.
• HTI signed MSA (master service agreement) with Flare Therapeutics.
• CryoDiscovery ™ will be presented at the 4th Annual CryoNET Symposium, October 18-19th 2021.

Izon

• Izon had two new team members join our Portland office at OBI this month.  Henry Scheffer joined as our new Research Associate and Brennan Van Deren joined as a part time Quality Assurance Intern.

Gamma Diagnostics

• The Department of Defense’s Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program has a Technology/Therapeutic Development Award, and invited us to submit a full proposal to develop GammaCoeur as a companion diagnostic to track COVID-19 disease severity. We submitted the grant on Sept. 2.
• We were one of 8 semi-finalists for the Bend Venture Conference in the Impact category.

Veana Therapeutics

• Veana was awarded a Phase I SBIR grant from the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute to conduct proof-of concept studies of its lead product, VIMO in combination with the monoclonal antibody trastuzumab (an equivalent of Herceptin).
• Veana closed a seed round with a total of  $1.25M raised.
• Veana is pleased to report that the first patient in the Phase Ib clinical trial of the company’s oral drug, VIMO in combination with Herceptin has been dosed!

Endosound

• Our EndoSound Vision System received a Breakthrough Device Designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Madorra

• Proud and excited to be a part of the inaugural class of Series P!

Caregiven

• When you search for Caregiven in Google, our company webpage is the first result! Then below it, our blogs, news, and social. A year of steady content creation, of learning algorithms and key words and pure doggedness by Michele Houck our marketing manager to learn the right way to “rank” while honoring our commitment to only produce content that lifts up the caregiving experience.
• We were awarded the TAO Start-Up of the Year award in the pre-revenue category.
• Candice Smith was a guest on the Aging in Portland podcast.
• Our Chief Revenue Officer, Anthony Mitchell and Candice had the opportunity to present at the ACORD InsurTech Innovation Challenge NY.
• Anthony also co-hosted a webinar on The Future of Value Adds in Insurance with an insurance luminary, Jason Gross.
• We also presented at CareTech presented by the Louisville Healthcare CEO’s Council and Aging 2.0. This was a global search for innovations that improve the patient or member experience.
• We were awarded the second place grant from the American Heart Association’s EmPOWERED to Serve program ($30K), sponsored by the American Heart Association of Oregon & SW Washington.
• We kicked off the first phase of our first pilot with a national palliative care provider. They will be using Caregiven to expedite the health outcomes their nurses already accomplish, and are including Caregiven as a differentiator for their company in proposals to major health systems nationally.
• We had over a dozen calls with insurance carriers about Q1 pilots and are under NDA and working on LOIs with several.
• And lastly, we are moving forward with our seed round and have been speaking with investors.

Congratulations to all our client companies – way to go! Keep the wins coming!

OBI Mentoring Program
Applications Now Open

Mentor and mentee applications are now open for the structured 6-month mentoring program which begins January 3, 2022 and runs through the end of June. Now is the time for YOU to get involved!

Would You Like to be a Mentor?
If you have experience working with startups in the bioscience or digital health industry, consider applying to become a mentor. Benefits of mentoring include:

• Free mentor training
• Exclusive access to handpicked startups
• Exclusive network of mentors
• Ability to earn mentor certification
• Give back to your community
• OBI highlights its mentors in the monthly newsletter

Growing Your Business? Become a Mentee!
We are looking for entrepreneurs who are already in business but would like guidance, accountability, and support from a mentor to help set and reach business goals. Benefits and time commitments for mentees include:

• Mentoring helps you grow your business! A recent survey from Kabbage found that 92% of businesses who have a mentor say mentoring has directly impacted their business growth and survival
• Mentee meets with mentor 2 hours a month for 6 months
• Mentee checks in with OBI once per month and completes a survey at the end of the program

Applications are Open from October 1-31
For more important dates, details, and link to the applications: www.otradi.org/mentoring

Business Oregon Matching Grants

News Release from Business Oregon:

“Business Oregon and the Oregon Innovation Council (Oregon InC) have opened a Request for Proposals (RFP) for Oregon matching grants to recipients of the federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant programs. This RFP seeks applications for matching grants of either Phase I, Phase II, or Fast-Track federal SBIR/STTR awards. The SBIR and STTR grant programs are designed to stimulate technological innovation and provide new opportunities for small businesses to conduct research and development with commercial potential. The RFP opened on September 8, 2021, and will close on October 14, 2021.

“An Oregon company that has received a Phase I SBIR/STTR award may submit a proposal for projects up to $50,000. A company with a Phase II or Fast-Track award may submit a proposal for projects up to $100,000. Business Oregon intends to make multiple awards under this program and will likely issue another matching grant RFP in 2022.

“A detailed overview of the RFP, selection process, application and supporting resources are on Business Oregon’s SBIR Support Program webpage. Completed applications are due by 11:59 pm PST on Thursday, October 14, 2021.”

Virtual Lunch & Learn:
Understanding the Investor Mindset
October 14, 2021
12:00-1:00 PM
FREE – Register here

November Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health
Virtual Happy Hour
November 4, 2021
5:00-6:30 PM
FREE – Register here

Virtual Lunch & Learn:
Past, Present, and Future of Digital Health
November 17, 2021
12:00-1:00 PM
Save the date!

Other Great Community Events

2021 Bend Venture Conference
October 21-22, 2021
More information here

Black Women in STEM 2.0 Summit:
Making HERstory
October 22-23, 2021
More information here

TAO Professional Development Program:
A Conversation About Cybersecurity Hygiene
October 27, 2021
11:00 AM-12:00 PM
Register here

PhRMA Pathways to Success in Biopharma
Virtual Graduate Summit & Career Expo
October 27-28, 2021
More information here

OCTRI Seminar: Demystify the Regulatory Environment
A Roadmap for Healthcare Technologies
October 28, 2021
2:00-3:00 PM
Register here

OregonBio Virtual Life Science Career Fair
November 10, 2021
10:00 AM-1:00 PM
Register here

Technology Association of Oregon:
Health Tech Summit
November 15-16, 2021
8:30 AM-1:00 PM
More information here

Oregon Entrepreneurs Network:
OEN Awards 2021 – FUTUREPROOF
November 18, 2021
5:00-8:00 PM
More information here

OBI Client Company Wins

Aronora

• Aronora reports positive topline data from their phase 2 clinical trial of recombinant antibody therapeutic AB023 in hemodialysis patients.
• This data was presented at the XXIX Congress of the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasias in July.
• See Aronora’s press release here.
• Aronora graduated from the OBI earlier this year, after joining the incubator in 2013.

Madorra

• Exciting news! The FDA has granted Madorra breakthrough device designation! Read about it here.
• We were mentioned in this great piece in Fast Company underlining the huge opportunity in perimenopause.
• We won the FemAging pitch competition in May and were featured in their report on the space.
• We were featured in an article about technology for menopause.
• We were a featured panelist in Springboard’s Women’s Health Innovation forum.
• Holly is a Ferolyn Fellow this year. Here’s a write up in the Fogarty Institute newsletter all about her participation in the program so far.
• We were featured in the September issue of the Elevate Capital newsletter.

Hemex Health

• We were featured in the Oregon Lottery spotlight.
• We were on the speaker panel of the Oregon Pediatric Innovation Event, Powered by CTIP, on September 1.
• We were also featured in the September issue of the Elevate Capital newsletter.

Caregiven

• We are a finalist in Aging 2.0’s Global Innovation Search, announcement attached.
• We are a finalist in the ACORD InsurTech Innovation Challenge.
• We were selected to participate in the American Heart Association of OR/SW Washington’s EmPOWERED to Serve program.
• The Caregiven team (5 employees and 3 contractors) met in-person for the first time (ever) in August for an on-site retreat that corresponded with our Q3 meeting of the Board of Directors.  Our team is fully remote with employees in North Carolina and Florida, and a contractor who lives in Arizona.  See team photo below.
• 

Oncol Drug Discovery Service

• Made substantial progress in developing optimized SOP for generating CART against targeted cancer.
  • Generated two targeted CART lines of high potency and purity (93-96% purity).
  • Will verify the performance and universality of the optimized SOP by generating another three targeted CART lines by October.

Gamma Diagnostics

• We’ve been accepted into Expert Dojo’s International Healthcare Startup Accelerator.
  • For companies accepted into the program, Expert Dojo invests $100,000, provides an 8-week training program that trains the members of the company in all aspects of business, and introduces them to investors and mentors.

Rewire Neuro

• Rewire was awarded our Phase II SBIR from the NIH! This two-year grant will help us develop additional cell detection capabilities and integrate our AI platform into partnering diagnostics devices and applications.

Thank You to our New Corporate Partner

We appreciate your support, Ajay Malhotra and Kristin Hammond!

Applications for OBI Mentoring Cohort
Opening Soon

Mentor and mentee applications open on October 1 for this structured, 6-month mentoring program, so save the date for your opportunity to get involved!

Would You Like to be a Mentor?
If you have experience working with startups in the bioscience or digital health industry, consider applying to become a mentor. Benefits of mentoring include:

• Free mentor training
• Exclusive access to handpicked startups
• Exclusive network of mentors
• Ability to earn mentor certification
• Give back to your community
• OBI highlights its mentors in the monthly newsletter

Growing Your Business? Become a Mentee!
We are looking for entrepreneurs who are already in business but would like guidance, accountability, and support from a mentor to help set and reach business goals. Benefits and time commitments for mentees include:

• Mentoring helps you grow your business! A recent survey from Kabbage found that 92% of businesses who have a mentor say mentoring has directly impacted their business growth and survival
• Mentee meets with mentor 2 hours a month for 6 months
• Mentee checks in with OBI once per month and completes a survey at the end of the program

Applications Open October 1-31
For more important dates, details, and link to the applications: www.otradi.org/mentoring

OBI is Launching a Job Board

We’re excited to announce that OBI will be launching our Job Board in the next two weeks and we’d love to list any open positions your organization may have. This will help us pre-populate the job board when we go live. If you are interested, please email info@otradi.org requesting the link to post your open positions.

If you are a job seeker and would like to have your resume reviewed by recruiters in the community, please email info@otradi.org requesting the link to upload your resume.

Thanks for helping us make this job board a success!

Black Women in STEM 2.0 Summit:
Making HERstory

Beaverton Startup Challenge

Apply now for the OTBC, City of Beaverton, and West Side Startup Fund Beaverton Startup Challenge. Five winners each receive a $25,000 convertible note investment; introductions to legal, accounting, HR, and marketing services; OTBC’s top-rated mentoring services, entrepreneur workshops, and more! Applications are accepted through September 30.

More information and application here.

Pitch Oregon – Apply Today!

In its 6th year, Pitch Oregon is TiE Oregon’s marquee event, attracting hundreds of entrepreneurs, mentors, and investors each year. New this year, we are welcoming companies from around the Pacific Northwest to apply and applicants will compete for an equitable investment! Application deadline September 30.

Click here for more information.

Free SBIR/STTR Training Events

The BBC Entrepreneurial Training & Consulting is offering free training events. September 14, 15, and 16 are packed full of free SBIR/STTR training sessions featuring program managers from varying granting and contracting agencies, such as NIH, DOD, NSF, and many others.

Full schedule, details, and registration here.

Technology Association of Oregon’s Founders Investing in Founders Program

Technology Association of Oregon recently announced their Founders Investing in Founders (FIIF) program. Led by six inaugural founders, this program helps increase diversity and create economic growth by providing support to underrepresented early-stage startups for up to three years.

Learn more about this innovative program here.

PDUFA VII for Biopharma Innovation

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released its performance goals letter for the seventh installment of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA). PDUFA was first enacted in 1992 as a bipartisan solution to the then long FDA regulatory review timelines for new drugs and biologics. PDUFA allows the FDA to collect fees from biopharmaceutical companies to speed and enhance the review process to help ensure patients have timely access to life-saving treatments.

Read more about how critical PDUFA VII is for future biopharmaceutical innovation and for patients.

Columbia Business School’s Executive Education

Are you looking to gain a competitive edge in digital health?

Columbia Business School’s 6-day Executive Education Model in Digital Health Strategy [Sept 21-23 & 28-30] is exclusively tailored for healthcare executives like you.

A unique first, the program combines Columbia Business School’s renowned leadership with HITLAB’s expertise in digital health research and education.

As a participant, you will learn about the necessary skills and resources required to successfully find, verify and diffuse these digital health solutions – allowing you to truly embed digital health into the core of your organization.

Learn more about the Digital Health Strategy: Leveraging Emerging Technologies in Healthcare program.

Here is a snapshot of the speaker line-up consisting of industry leaders:

• Peter Pfeiffer, Senior Partner, Mckinsey & Company
• Stacy Lloyd, Director of Digital Health Strategy, American Medical Association
• Robin Roberts, Cofounder, Novartis Biome
• Shwen Gwee, VP, Bristol Myers Squibb

View the complete agenda, speaker line-up and session topics for the program here.

Ask about a special OTRADI & OBI tuition rate of $999.

Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health
Virtual Happy Hour
September 9, 2021 – TONIGHT!
5:00-6:30 PM
FREE – Register in advance here

Virtual Lunch & Learn:
Managing Stress & Performance
September 15, 2021
12:00-1:00 PM
FREE – Register here

Virtual Lunch & Learn:
Understanding the Investor Mindset
October 14, 2021
FREE – Register here

October Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health
Virtual Happy Hour
October 7, 2021
Save the date

Other Great Community Events

VertueLab Fuel 2021:
Catalyzing CleanTech Solutions Summit
September 13-15, 2021
Register here

OregonBio Mini BioPro Lunch & Learn:
Making Your Innovations Shine –
The Magic of Good Data Presentation
September 14, 2021
12:00-1:00 PM
Register here

2021 Oregon Technology Awards
(Our own Caregiven is a finalist in the pre-revenue category!)
September 17, 2021
5:00-9:00 PM
View the livestream here

OSU Advantage Accelerator Speaker Series:
What a CPA Does for your Startup
September 22, 2021
12:00-1:00 PM
Register here

The MedTech Conference,
Powered by AdvaMed
September 27-30, 2021
More information here

OHSU Invent-a-thon Social Hour:
Future of Femtech
September 28, 2021
4:00-5:00 PM
Register here

2021 Bend Venture Conference
October 21-22, 2021
More information here

Absci Goes Public!

OBI graduate Absci made its debut on the NASDAQ (ticker symbol ABSI) on Thursday, July 22, and founder Sean McClain and his team rang the closing bell. GeekWire has a great article about how Sean founded the company at age 22. Absci was an OTRADI resident client company from 2013 to 2016 – see photos below of their lab space with us. We are happy to be a part of Absci’s journey to success.

Thank You to our New Corporate Partner

OBI/OTRADI Receives High Impact Opportunity Program Award

The Oregon Innovation Council and Business Oregon have approved OBI/OTRADI for a High Impact Opportunity Project Award to support bioscience companies’ ability to stay and grow in Oregon by adding 6 wet labs and offices to our incubator facilities. Completion expected in Fall 2021. Questions about space availability? Inquire here.

OBI Client Company Wins

• ProMedix
  • We were awarded a $30K grant from OHSU Technology Transfer.
  • We also have a new publication that recently went live.
• Gamma Diagnostics
  • We were accepted into California’s Expert Dojo accelerator cohort.
• Inherent Targeting
  • We were recently awarded an SBIR Phase 1 grant from the NSF.
• SUTUREGARD
  • We are continuing to gain traction with Q2 2021 sales highest ever.

Biomedical Innovation: Commercialization Readiness Program is Open for Enrollment

The Biomedical Innovation: Commercialization Readiness Program (BIP Corp) is a 5-week course for life science innovators to advance their technology to clinical practice. We’ve made some improvements over the last year, including engaging a national NIH and NSF I-Corps instructor to lead the lectures. The course is ideal for teams, appropriate for clinical and research scientists, engineers, and life science entrepreneurs. Early-stage ideas welcome!

We’re enrolling projects for the Sept 10 – Oct 15 virtual cohort. Learn more and enroll.

Creative Destruction Lab Mentoring

Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) – Seattle Computational Health is an annual program for seed-stage startups working in the areas of digital and computational health. The program brings together world-class entrepreneurs, investors, scientists, and health professionals to mentor participating founders on prioritizing objectives to increase their probability of success. Participating startups work with CDL Mentors to prioritize key milestones, raise capital, and engage with experts working on the frontiers of research in related fields.

The program consists of four in-person objective-setting sessions held once every two months at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business in Seattle between November 2021 and June 2022. CDL is a non-profit organization. There are no fees for participation and CDL does not take any equity or affect ownership of intellectual property. The deadline to apply for the 2021/22 cohort is August 23, 2021.

For more information: https://www.creativedestructionlab.com/locations/seattle/

COVID-19 Dose Sharing Part of Global Vaccine Equity Strategy

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has been met with the most efficient vaccine development process in history. Dose sharing entails working with governments that have directly purchased COVID-19 vaccine doses to contribute to the global supply through COVAX or other efficient, established distribution mechanisms. Collaboration to increase dose sharing has been one of the most immediate steps to close the vaccine coverage gap, redirecting doses to low- and middle-income countries that did not secure agreements with vaccine manufacturers earlier in the pandemic.

Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health
Virtual Happy Hour
September 9, 2021
5:00-6:30 PM
Register here

Other Great Community Events

Zapproved Event: Talking to Kids About Racism
August 11, 2021
12:00-1:00 PM
Register here

AvaMed MedInvest Life Sciences Conference
September 8-10, 2021
More information

2021 Oregon Technology Awards
(Caregiven is a finalist in the pre-revenue category!)
September 17, 2021
5:00-9:00 PM
Register here

Absci Files for IPO

Big news for OBI graduate Absci! Last week they filed paperwork with the SEC for an initial public offering. Absci, a biotech company whose technology enables “better, faster, smarter” biologic drug discovery and cell lines, graduated from the OBI in 2016. They’ve grown substantially over the past several years, acquiring other companies, most recently Totient, and expanding their operations and workforce. GeekWire just featured them in an article about biotech in the Pacific Northwest.

We at the OBI & OTRADI are cheering on Absci for many years of continued success and growth.

OBI Client Company Wins

• Hemex Health
  • We’ve officially launched our newborn release! Gazelle is now able to diagnose newborns for sickle cell disease before they even leave the hospital. Check out the press release.
  • With our product design and engineering partner Tata Elxsi, the Gazelle Reader won the Social Impact Solution of the Year award at the 2021 NASSCOM Engineering & Innovation Excellence Awards in India!
  • In a recent P. vivax clinical study, Gazelle demonstrated higher sensitivity than the only FDA-approved malaria rapid diagnostic test. Press release here.
• Izon
  • Izon has recently released two new consumables products to the market! We hope these kits will further establish Izon as an industry leader in extracellular vesicle analysis. Please see product pages below:
    • qEV RNA Extraction Kit
    • qEV Concentration Kit
  • Izon is seeking a Lab Technician/Research Associate for its Portland office. Please see job description and share with interested applicants.
• Gamma Diagnostics
  • We have a new name – Gamma Therapeutics is now Gamma Diagnostics!
  • David Eastman retired as CEO, we hired Ajay Nair from Perth, Australia as our new CEO, and he hired Chris Venter, also from Perth, as our Chief Finance Officer.
  • We also discovered that our GammaCoeur diagnostic blood test for cardiovascular disease is extremely elevated in COVID-19 patients and predicts the need for hospitalized patients to need extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) in order not to suffocate, and it predicts death from COVID-19. We now have a provisional patent on this I.P. that also protects the use of the test as a companion diagnostic for the administration of dexamethasone in COVID-19 patients.
• Rewire Neuro
  • Rewire secured additional investment from Angel Oregon Tech, and received funding from Elevate Capital’s Oregon Gap Fund. We are excited to have these investors supporting Rewire’s growth and are thankful for Business Oregon and Oregon InC’s funding of early-stage Oregon startups.
• Caregiven
  • We were delighted to learn that we are a semi-finalist for Aging 2.0’s Global Innovation Search.
  • Candice Smith was interviewed by the HITLab for their Women’s Health Tech Wednesday forum.
  • Caregiven was highlighted in an article titled “Looking to the Future of Insurance.”
  • Caregiven was presented “Shark Tank” style to attendees at the ISCPA conference.
• CytoImage
  • Founder Tania Vu presented at the international Innovation Stage at BIO Digital 2021.
• Inherent Targeting
  • CEO Connor Barth also presented at BIO Digital 2021 Innovation Stage.
• SUTUREGARD
  • We were named a Top 10 Innovation by Podiatry Today, a leading trade journal. This is unsolicited, unlike some trade publication lists which are paid for. We are at the end of the article; they saved the best for last!
  • The Veteran’s Administration is now ordering HEMIGARD. Our Veteran population has a high incidence of wound problems and we will be making a big impact here, reducing wound complications and improving limb salvage efforts. The HEMIGARD is a great tool to not only speed the surgical closure, reduce the need for additional deep sutures, but also to support the healing through the difficult postoperative period when the foot may swell and the wound may open (dehisce).  We are excited to improve outcomes for our veterans!

Meet our Administrative Assistant,
Sarah Vivian

Sarah joined OTRADI in July of 2021. She is a seasoned office specialist with over a decade of administrative experience. In her role, Sarah helps facilitate the everyday administrativia of the office and is the point person for OBI client companies.

Having a background as a technical writer and a passion for nonprofit and social justice work, Sarah served as a committee head and then Board Director of Communications for Pride Northwest, the nonprofit organization that plans and implements the Portland LGBTQ+ Pride Festival and Parade, until 2017.

In her personal time, Sarah is an avid crafter, permaculture gardener, home cook, and true crime fanatic. We are thrilled to have her on the OBI team!

ScienceDocs Interview with
Inherent Targeting’s Connor Barth

Inherent Targeting co-founder and CEO Connor Barth, PhD recently sat down with Claire Sykes for an enjoyable ScienceDocs interview after winning a $2.25 million SBIR grant for their fluorescence-guided nerve detection technology. Watch the 30-minute video and read the transcript here.

Summer-Fall Mentoring Kicks Off

July 1 was the start date for the Summer-Fall 2021 cohort of the OBI Mentoring Program. This 6-month cohort includes mentors and mentees listed below; some are new pairings and triples, and some returning pairings. We are pleased to welcome these participants and wish them much success in making progress toward their goals.

We will have a new cohort of mentors and mentees in January, 2022. Keep an eye on the mentoring page on our website and newsletter for more information in the fall on how you can participate in our mentoring program.

Kamino App Has Launched

TeleHeath and wellness company, Kamino Care provides nutrition and health coaching for Latin X clients via video appointment. Bilingual providers assist families and caregivers with the latest nutrition and fitness advice, from a preventative mindset, all from the comfort of home.

Their story begins when a young boy named Heber is asked to translate from English to Spanish for his mother once she was diagnosed with Type-2 Diabetes. She was advised to eat whole grains, whole foods, potatoes, and tofu. Due to cultural differences, the provider failed to recognize the family’s pantry was filled with arroz, frijoles, and tortillas. Kamino Care helps people like Heber’s mom get the health and wellness they need with a provider who understands both their culture and language.

As a young boy, Nick watched his father’s diabetes worsen due to improper nutrition and fitness management, ultimately leading to a stroke and heart attack. He has made it one of his life’s goals to stay fit, healthy and informed on how to best prevent diabetes as much as possible. Kamino Care was an obvious choice for Nick to provide families the tools they need to hopefully avoid the tragedies of Diabetes.

Kamino Care’s mobile appointment app, Kamino, is available for both iOS and Android devices and offers a free 30 minutes appointment with a Nutrition or Fitness provider.

OTBC is Hiring an Executive Director

OTBC‘s long-serving Executive Director is preparing to retire, and we are looking for the next leader for this small but ambitious not-for-profit. The Executive Director is responsible for the management of the OTBC facility, staff and programs and for performing diverse tasks ranging from mentoring of entrepreneurs to office operations. This position is full-time and reports to the OTBC Board of Directors.

The position is full-time, based in Beaverton, and offers a wide range of exposure to the Oregon entrepreneurial and funding communities. Highlights of the position include:

• Develop and oversee OTBC entrepreneur support programs including entrepreneur mentoring, workshops, the Beaverton Startup Challenge, the Rural Oregon
• Startup Challenge which includes the Virtual Incubation Program, and future programs of the organization.
• Offer superior startup business coaching to participating entrepreneurs
• Create the OTBC annual operational plan and execute the plan after approval by the Board
• Oversee OTBC marketing and outreach programs, including social media marketing
• Raise funds for OTBC operations
• Represent OTBC and its client businesses to the community, to investors, and to partner agencies and funding organizations

Apply no later than August 1, 2021. More information here.

Other Great Community Events

TAO Leader Launchpad: Career Mapping
July 15, 2021
4:00-5:30 PM
More information

ULP: International Clinical Trial Negotiation and Management
July 28, 2021
9:00-10:00 AM
Register here

Zapproved Event: Talking to Kids About Racism
August 11, 2021
12:00-1:00 PM
Register here

Rewire Neuro Wins Angel Oregon Tech 2021!

Big congratulations to OBI client company Rewire Neuro for winning Angel Oregon Tech 2021 and receiving a $125,000 equity investment from AOTech investors. Out of 90 companies who went through the program, nine were selected to pitch at the final AOTech at TechFestNW event on May 21, and Rewire Neuro was the judges’ top pick. Kudos!

OBI Client Company Wins

• Inherent Targeting
  • Presented at the Angel Capital Association Summit Innovation Showcase, sponsored by the Oregon Bioscience Association.
  • CEO Connor Barth was awarded OHSU’s Early Career Innovator Award. The Early Career Innovator Award is presented to an OHSU employee such as a student, post-doctoral fellow, medical resident or someone else early in their professional career who possesses a passion for innovation and developing technologies to solve real-world problems. They work closely with the innovation ecosystems within and outside of OHSU to prepare their innovations for commercial success.
  • Selected to present a company presentation at the BIO Digital 2021 conference.
• Hemex Health
  • Selected as a 2021 TiE50 winner as part of the TiECon program for our Gazelle reader diagnostic device! Press release here.
• Vir Biotechnology
  • Just received EUA for Vir’s Covid antibody. Please read their press release.
• HTI
  • CryoDiscovery (TM): A Machine Learning Platform for Automated Cryo-electron Microscopy 2D Class Selection paper will be presented at the ACA (American Crystallographic Association) conference in Aug 2021.
  • Is now a member of the Nvidia Inception and Intel AI Builder program.
  • Recently signed a Master Service Agreement (MSA) with Agios.

Welcome New OBI Client Companies

Founder Thomas Buchanan, MD and his company, Buchanan Science, joined the OBI in May. Buchanan Science is developing a rapid COVID-19 immunity test using whole blood or saliva. 

In June, we welcomed Oncol Drug Discovery Service, with founder Franklin Yu, PhD. Oncol DD Service is focused on CAR-T immunotherapy research and reagent development, CAR-T cell generation, and T cell activation and proliferation assays for IO drug discovery, among other things.

Mentor of the Month:
Keith Daellenbach

Keith Daellenbach is one of our current OBI mentors. He has a BSME from Oregon State University and a MSME from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Keith’s experience with startups includes working with startups as part of Principles of Entrepreneurship course while in graduate school, working at the startup Ora Innovations, Inc. developing a high speed dental drill as a Product Development Engineer, serving on the BioPro Workforce Training Steering Committee with Oregon Bioscience Association to create a workforce training program, and serving as an Advisor with the OBI/OTRADI.

Keith is enjoying monthly meetings with his mentees to help them reach their goals, and plans to participate once again in next January’s mentoring cohort. Thank you, Keith, for all you do!

Sparrow Pharmaceuticals

OBI graduate Sparrow Pharmaceuticals recently secured $50 million in Series A financing led by OrbiMed with participation from RiverVest Venture Partners and U.S. Venture Partners.

Funds from this investment will be used to further develop Sparrow’s proprietary HSD-1 inhibitor, SPI-62, for treatment of disorders of corticosteroid excess.

Congratulations to Sparrow Pharmaceuticals!

FDA Office of Minority Health and Health Equity

The FDA’s Office of Minority Health and Health Equity (OMHHE) was established in 2010 with the mission of protecting and promoting the health of racial and ethnic minority and other diverse populations through research, outreach, and communication of science that addresses health disparities. The office’s dedicated staff in the Research and Collaboration and Outreach and Communication programs work with a wide variety of public and private stakeholders to address the needs and concerns of diverse communities through developing tailored educational, outreach, training, and scientific initiatives that advance health equity. Please read Richardae Araojo, Pharm.D., MS, the Associate Commissioner for Minority Health Director, Office of Minority Health and Health Equity, U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s guest post on The Catalyst. 

Events

Join Us For These Upcoming OBI Events

Virtual Lunch & Learn:
Accelerating Global Pharma Licensing & Financing
June 22, 2021
12:00-1:00 PM
Register here

Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health
Virtual Happy Hour
July 8, 2021
5:00-6:30 PM
Save the date

Virtual Lunch & Learn:
Biotech and Biomed Patents by USPTO
July 14, 2021
12:00-1:30 PM
Save the date

More Community & Partner Events

BIO Digital International Convention
June 10-11 & 14-18, 2021
More information here

TAO Member Mix: June
June 16, 2021
4:30-5:30 PM
Register here

Techlandia Summit ’21
June 21 through June 24, 2021
9:00 AM-12:00 PM
Register now

Invent-a-Thon Social Hour – FemTech,
Featuring Holly Rockweiler from Madorra
July 13, 2021
4:00-5:00 PM
Register here

OBI Client Company Wins

• Hemex
  • We are excited to announce our new partnership with Cureleads for distribution of Gazelle in the Middle East, Turkey and North Africa.
  • Our CEO, Patti White, was a keynote speaker in the OHSU Invent-a-thon Post-Hack!
  • We are also releasing our newborn screening capacity for sickle cell anemia in May.
• Caregiven
  • Our big news is that we launched our app on April 15th!
  • And we closed our pre-seed with a total of $700K raised.
  • We are also a 2021 Oregon Technology Awards finalist!
• SUTUREGARD Medical
  • We shipped the most HEMIGARD ever in Q1 2021
  • We have teamed with one of the leading foot and ankle surgeons in the world, Dr Mark Myerson. He has now enrolled 8 colleagues across the country and is initiating a clinical trial of HEMIGARD in ankle replacement/fusion surgery.
  • We just attended the Chicago Lower Extremity Surgery Symposium in April as invited speakers, and we had the HEMIGARD successfully demo’ed on live video by the Symposium Chairman, Dr. Edgardo Rodriguez-Collazo.
• Gamma Therapeutics
  • David Eastman has retired as CEO of Gamma Therapeutics, and Ajay Nair has signed on as CEO.
  • We are re-branding Gamma Therapeutics to Gamma Diagnostics, since our focus going forward will be on diagnostics.
• Rewire Neuro
  • We won a Cougar Cage grant from WSU (it is their version of Shark Tank).
  • And we have advanced to the finals round of the Angel Oregon Tech TechFestNW competition.
• Madorra
  • We were selected from a pool of more than 100 applicants to present at Cooley’s Capital Call fundraising event.
  • We were mentioned in the Femtech Insider interview with Portfolia Founder, Trish Costello.
  • We were featured in HitLab’s Women’s Health Wednesdays interview.
• Izon
  • Grazia Abou Ezzi, Ph.D has joined Izon Science at OBI as our Senior R&D Support Scientist.
• Consano
  • We had our first Consano Speaker Series virtual event featuring one of our crowdfunding researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute on 4/15 utilizing local tech platform Brandlive. It was a great success, raising over $10K for the project which is working to increase health equity for cancer patients by connecting them directly with community resources. Watch recording of the 45 minute event here.
• OBI graduate AbSci announces completion of $125 million crossover financing to advance AI-powered synthetic biology drug creation platform. Read press release.

Mentor of the Month:
Peter Schuerman

Peter Schuerman is CEO of Open Clearing, LLC and is one of our valuable mentors. With a PhD in Genetics, and experience in ideation, business strategy, and intentional networking, Peter works with start ups in the role of coach, mentor, and advisor. He focuses on customer discovery, team formation and dynamics, business model innovation, and strategy; he enjoys creating environments and partnerships that foster success.

Each month, Peter’s mentee through the OBI Mentoring Program has glowing comments about working with Peter and his help in setting goals and concrete steps, brainstorming, and pivoting when needed.

Thank you Peter, for all you do!

SBIR/STTR Workshop May 25

The Federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs are a critical source of non-dilutive financing for early-stage companies. On May 25 from 10-11:30 a.m., NIH National Cancer Institute SBIR program directors Monique Pond and Jonathan Franca-Koh will deliver a virtual seminar covering eligibility, resources, and investor initiatives. Pre-selected companies will also be speaking with the program directors afterward for 1:1 meetings.

This event is a collaboration between the National Cancer Institute, Oregon Bioscience Incubator, OHSU’s Cancer Early Detection Advanced Research Center, and Oregon Clinical and Translational Research Institute.

Caregiven is Hosting an App Jam Focus Group
June 10 from 5:30-6:30 p.m.

Register in advance to enjoy delicious provisions and participate in Caregiven‘s App Jam!

Portland State Business Accelerator
is Hiring a Director

The Director will oversee and execute a suite of support services for resident companies, including workshops, boot camps, mentors, software tools and programs, and shared resource management. The Director will create and execute the operational plans for the PSBA and contribute to strategic direction for Propel PSU within Research and Graduate Studies, and be accountable for achievement of short-term operational objectives at the PSBA. The tasks for the position require interpretation and application of the PSBA’s strategy to set objectives, and ultimately impacts the achievement of results within the PSBA and Propel PSU. The position includes coordination of the PSBA’s wet-lab facilities, managing the PSBA budget, and seeking additional resources for the PBSA through sponsorships and grant applications.

For more information and how to apply, see the full job posting.

Americans are Relying on Vaccines
to get through the Pandemic

Data shows Americans are relying on vaccines to get us through the pandemic. As we continue to combat the pandemic, America’s biopharmaceutical industry is working around the clock in unprecedented partnerships to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines, reaching billions of doses by the end of the year. Vaccination rates and willingness to receive a vaccine among Americans are also at a high, where half of all adults in the U.S. have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

New Pre-Seed Venture Fund:
Startup Haven

Silicon Florist recently blogged about a new venture fund: the Startup Haven Ventures Fund is a new pre-seed venture fund, investing in North-America-based pre-seed companies with capital-efficient business models and early signs of commercialization. The Startup Haven Ventures Fund also invests in all of the companies who participate in the Startup Haven Accelerator.

Read more about this new fund and how you might get involved here.

Events

OBI EVENTS

SBIR/STTR Workshop
May 25, 2021
10:00-11:30 AM
Register here

Virtual Lunch & Learn:
Employees Returning to the Workplace
June 9, 2021
12:00-1:00 PM
Save the date

Caregiven App Jam Focus Group
June 10, 2021
5:30-6:30 PM
Register in advance

MORE COMMUNITY & PARTNER EVENTS

VertueLab: The ABCs of SBIR/STTR Funding
May 13, 2021
12:00-1:00 PM
Register now

TAO: Oregon STEM Week
May 14, 2021
9:00-10:00 AM
Register here

Oregon Bio Virtual Career Fair
May 20, 2021
9:00 AM-1:00 PM
More information here

Angel Oregon Tech TechFest NW
May 21, 2021
9:00 AM-4:30 PM
Tickets here

Tech Oregon Careers: Spring Job Fair
May 24, 2021
11:30 AM-1:00 PM
Details here

The OBI Welcomes Thaena, Inc.

In April, Thaena, Inc. joined the OBI as its newest client company. Thaena’s four-person team describes their company’s mission and vision:

“Thaena Inc. is a women-led early stage biotech company. Our mission is to reduce suffering by restoring balance to the microbial ecosystems.

“At Thaena we achieve our mission through research and development of all natural pre and postbiotic products derived containing hundreds of compounds and metabolites that work together to balance and restore native microbial ecosystems. Our main focus is to produce and manufacture effective, safe, and reproducible (cGMP) products that are scientifically proven to support health via the microbial ecosystems of the gut and/or skin.

“Thaena’s vision is to be the leading and trusted manufacturer and supplier of naturally derived pre and postbiotic active ingredient products. We are working towards this goal with a data-driven approach researching the molecules (postbiotics) that are found in healthy human stool. This work is based on the pioneering work of our founders in Fecal Microbiota Transplant as well as an experienced research team. We are pioneers in advancing our understanding of microbiome science by providing a research and development platform that will allow for exploration and discovery of what it means to be ‘healthy’ from the lens of the microbes.”

We are thrilled to have Thaena onboard!

Thank you, Autodesk!

Thank you, Autodesk and Greg Fallon, VP of Platforms and Technology at Autodesk’s Portland site, for becoming an OBI corporate partner and for your support of OBI’s mission to provide resources for health innovation companies that impact human well-being and create jobs for Oregon!

Upward Growth

Two of OBI’s client companies are moving on up! Inherent Targeting is moving from an OBI membership to a spot in our co-working space in Suite 200, and Izon is moving from the co-working space to private office suite and lab space, also in Suite 200. We wish them much success on their continued growth and expansion within the OBI.

OBI Client Company Wins

• Rewire Neuro‘s Pipsqueak AI version 5.5.0 has been released. It features new detection models, smoother model customization, and better co-localization analysis.
• Health Technology Innovations, Inc. (HTI)‘s CryoDiscovery™: A Machine Learning Platform for Automated Cryo-EM Class Selection for Single Particle Analysis in Structural Biology paper has been accepted by the Microscopy and Microanalysis 2021 conference (M&M), to be presented in August 2021. HTI has also been accepted as a Premier Member into the NVIDIA Inception Program for AI and data science start up.
• Caregiven crossed another threshold earlier this month when Rogue Venture Partners finalized their pre-seed investment becoming a true partner to our vision and catalyst for the next stage of our company’s growth. Our app is set to launch on April 15.
• Hemex has two great wins to report:
  • In a recent clinical study conducted in Brazil and published in the Malaria Journal, Gazelle was shown to outperform current RDTs (Rapid Diagnostic Tests) in detection of P. vivax malaria. P. vivax, the most widely dispersed species of malaria, tends to be more difficult to detect with RDTs due to typically low levels of parasitemia. We are excited to share the results of the study with you in our press release.
  • We also won a Phase I grant to add multispectral imaging to our Hb Variant test to lower the limit of detection and allow the test to screen newborns for sickle cell and other hemoglobin variants.

Join the OBI Mentoring Program:
Applications Open Through April 30

Mentor and mentee applications are open until April 30 for this structured, 6-month mentoring program, so now is your opportunity to get involved!

Would You Like to be a Mentor?
If you have experience working with startups in the bioscience or digital health industry, consider applying to become a mentor. Benefits of mentoring include:

• Free mentor training
• Exclusive access to handpicked startups
• Exclusive network of mentors
• Ability to earn mentor certification
• Give back to your community
• OBI highlights its mentors in the monthly newsletter

Growing Your Business? Become a Mentee!
We are looking for entrepreneurs who are already in business but would like guidance, accountability, and support from a mentor to help set and reach business goals. Benefits and time commitments for mentees include:

• Mentoring helps you grow your business! A recent survey from Kabbage found that 92% of businesses who have a mentor say mentoring has directly impacted their business growth and survival
• Mentee meets with mentor 2 hours a month for 6 months
• Mentee checks in with OBI once per month and completes a survey at the end of the program

Apply by April 30
For more important dates, details, and link to the applications: www.otradi.org/mentoring

Mentor of the Month
Douglas Kawahara

Douglas Kawahara is the President & CEO of Elex Biotech and has over 25 years of biotechnology industry experience in business development, M&A, in-/out-licensing, technology assessment, strategic marketing/market analysis, patent portfolio management, and R&D management. His work has spanned the spectrum of the life sciences industry: multiple therapeutic areas, discovery to late-stage development, a range of therapeutic classes, therapeutic and preventive vaccines, platform technologies, diagnostics, and research products. In addition, he has an extensive international network in pharma, biotech, and venture capital communities.

Dr. Kawahara holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of California, San Diego, an MBA in finance from California State University, Long Beach, and a Ph.D. in microbiology (immunology) from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.

His mentee is very pleased with the mentoring and notes that Dr. Kawahara’s experience in negotiating licensing agreements has been extremely helpful.

OHSU Invent-a-thon Post-Hack

Wednesday, April 21 from 3:00-6:00 PM Pacific

Come cheer on the most promising teams from October’s Invent-a-thon, addressing topics ranging from Alzheimer’s to asthma, aging-in-place to efficient trial recruiting. They’ll pitch live to compete for a share of $40k in prizes plus in-kind investor support. Get inspired by brief keynotes from OBI client company Hemex Health, as well as Kiddo and Xploro. Then enjoy some genuinely fun virtual networking and poster session with healthcare entrepreneurs, investors, and researchers while the judges deliberate.

This is an exciting opportunity to connect and catch a glimpse of the future of digital health and med-tech first-hand. Free, learn more and register at inventathon.org

SBIR/STTR Workshop May 25

The Federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs are a critical source of non-dilutive financing for early-stage companies. On May 25, NIH National Cancer Institute SBIR program directors Monique Pond and Jonathan Franca-Koh will cover eligibility, resources, investor initiatives and meet 1:1 with pre-selected companies.

• 10-11:30 a.m. virtual seminar
• 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. 1:1 meetings
• Register by May 7 to be considered for a 1:1 meeting

This event is a collaboration between the National Cancer Institute, Oregon Bioscience Incubator, OHSU’s Cancer Early Detection Advanced Research Center, and Oregon Clinical and Translational Research Institute.

Biopharma Collaboration is Crucial

As we mark a full year since COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, it’s impossible to overstate the significance of collaborations. The coronavirus outbreak has brought new attention to the importance of these innovative cross-stakeholder partnerships. A new report from PhRMA looks broadly at the collaborative ecosystem and illustrates biopharmaceutical industry’s long history and vast experience with a diverse breadth of collaborative efforts.

OHSU Research Week 2021

On May 6, learn more about research and innovation at OHSU, hosted by Technology Transfer and Collaborations & Entrepreneurship.

Agenda:

10-11am: Innovation and Commercialization Keynote

11:30am-12:30pm: A Researcher’s Guide to Partnering with Industry

1:00-2:00pm: OHSU Innovation Showcase

2:30-3:30pm: OHSU Startup Company Showcase

More details and registration here!

Events

OBI EVENTS

Virtual Lunch & Learn:
Funding Your Early Stage Bioscience Business
April 22, 2021
12:00-1:00 PM
Register here

Accelerate Biotech + Digital Health
Virtual Happy Hour
May 6, 2021
5:00-6:30 PM
Register in advance

Virtual Lunch & Learn:
Counterfeit Medicines & Drug Importation’s
Impact on Bioscience Innovation
May 11, 2021
12:00-1:00 PM
More information

MORE COMMUNITY & PARTNER EVENTS

TAO Event: Founders Talk Fundraising
April 15, 2021
11:00 AM-12:00 PM
Registration link

Zapproved Event: Colonialism in the Workplace
April 15, 2021
12:00-1:00 PM
Register here

PSBA Lunch & Learn:
Difficult Conversations and Working Through Tensions
April 27, 2021
12:00-1:00 PM
Register now

TAO Event: Resilience Shapes Reputation
April 28, 2021
11:00 AM-12:00 PM
Registration link

VertueLab and Women in Science PDX Event:
Badass Women Entrepreneurs
April 29, 2021
12:00-1:30 PM
Register now

Congratulations to Aronora on their Graduation from OBI!