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URMC / Virtual Drug Discovery / Start-ups

 

Start-ups

University of Rochester start-up companies and other collaborating biotech companies.

UR Start-up Companies and Other Collaborating Biotech

AndroScience Corporation
AndroScience uses intellectual property from the University of Rochester Medical Center and University of North Carolina as well as its expertise in natural product chemistry to discover compounds that target different stages of the androgen activation pathway. The Company is developing compounds into new medicines to facilitate wound healing and for the treatment of acne, androgenic alopecia, benign prostatic hyperplasia, prostate cancer, and other androgen or androgen receptor-related disorders.

Founder: Chawnshang Chang, Ph.D.

Califia Bio, Inc.
Collaborating on HIV associated neurocognitive disorders with Handy Gelbard, Steve Dewhurst, and Sanjay Maggirwar of URMC.

Calorics, LLC
Calorics is a drug discovery platform company based on a high throughput screening lifespan assay; a cell-based, phenotypic assay that affords a significant advantage over other approaches in drug discovery. The technology features: (i) an automated and quantitative high throughput screening (HTS) techniques, unlike previous tedious microscopic techniques, that lead to faster drug discovery and development for age related diseases; (ii) applicability to drug discovery for a wide range of age-related disease; and (iii) validation in several animal disease models. This platform has broad applications in discovery of new therapeutics for the treatment of age related diseases: cancer, diabetes, arthritis, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and heart disease.

Founder: Davis S. Goldfarb, Ph.D.

OyaGen, Inc.
OyaGen is a biotechnology company formed on September 5, 2003, for the purpose of discovering, developing, and commercializing novel pharmaceutical therapies that seek to exploit RNA editing and DNA editing enzymes. OyaGen holds exclusive rights to important technologies originating from the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC), the Thomas Jefferson University (TJU), Vybion and Oregon Health Science Center.

Address: Rochester BioVenture Center, Room 151,
77 Ridgeland Road, Henrietta, NY 14623

Founder: Harold C. Smith

Socratech
Collaborating with Berislav Zlokovic and Joe Miano on small molecule therapeutics to treat neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. Fields in which Socratech is working include new vascular gene targets for treatment of vascular brain disorders and cognitive impairment, and development of small molecule compounds which improve blood flow to the brain.

Vaccinex, Inc. 
Vaccinex is a privately held biotechnology company engaged in the discovery and development of human therapeutic monoclonal antibodies and other biologic products to treat serious diseases with unmet needs, including cancer, multiple sclerosis, and other autoimmune diseases. We conduct discovery research in-house and in collaboration with world-class academic institutions and biotechnology companies, and have an experienced in-house drug development management team to advance our pre-clinical and clinical stage biopharmaceutical development programs.

Founder: Maurice Zauderer, Ph.D.

NIH Grant Awards to University of Rochester Start-up Companies

Project Number: 5R42AG026950-03

Contact Principal Investigator: Joseph M. Miano, Ph.D.
Title: SRF/MYOCD: NEW TARGETS IN ALZHEIMER'S NEUROVASCULATURE
Awardee Organization: SOCRATECH, LLC

Project Number: 5P01MH064570

Contact Principal Investigator: Harris A. Gelbard, M.D.
Title: NOVEL ADJUNCTIVE THERAPIES FOR NEUROAIDS
Awardee Organization: UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
(Collaboration with Califia Bio)

Project Number: 3R21NS067671-01S1

Contact Principal Investigator: Harold C. Smith
Title: DEVELOPMENT OF A HIGH THROUGHPUT SCREEN FOR ANTAGONISTS OF VIF DIMERIZATION
Awardee Organization: OyaGen, Inc.

Project Number: 1R21AI095007-01A1

Contact Principal Investigator: Harold C. Smith
Title: DEVELOPMENT OF A NOVEL HIV/AIDS THERAPEUTIC ACTIVATING THE APOBEC3G HOST DEFENSE
Awardee Organization: OyaGen, Inc.