Startups
The proximity of our School to companies in the Research Triangle Park has helped spawn unique interactions between academia and industry, resulting in a highly collaborative research setting.
Our faculty, staff, and students have produced inventions that have been licensed to established companies and led to the creation of new companies.
Startup Company Profiles (by year)
IRIS BioMed
Faculty Founder(s)
Year Founded
2015
IRIS BioMed has developed a wavelength-encodable technology that delivers therapeutic agents to diseased sites with exquisite spatial and temporal precision, providing the opportunity to deliver drugs in a highly choreographed fashion. Potential applications span a wide variety of disorders, including cancer, auto-immune diseases, and vascular disorders.
Falcon Therapeutics
Faculty Founder(s)
Year Founded
2015
Falcon Therapeutics is developing an entirely new approach to Glioblastoma therapy that uses revolutionary stem cell technology to create personalized genetically engineered neural stem cells therapies from the skin of cancer patients.
Mucommune
Faculty Founder(s)
Year Founded
2015
In March 2015 Sam Lai, filed Articles of Incorporation for his company, Mucommune LLC. Mucommune is focused on harnessing IgG-mucin interactions to reinforce mucosal health against microbial infections.
Panacise Bio
Faculty Founder(s)
Year Founded
2015
In February 2015 Rihe Liu, filed Articles of Incorporation for his company, Panacise Bio LLC. Panacise is developing self-assembling protein multimers with multi-targeting specificity for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes, such as for cancer surface markers and immune checkpoints.
Initos Pharma
Year Founded
2014
In October 2014 Rudolph Juliano, and Bill Janzen co-founded Initos Pharma. Initos and created a platform delivery technology for nucleic acid therapeutics to develop agents to enhance intracellular delivery of oligonucleotides, peptides, and proteins.
Meryx
Year Founded
2013
Meryx, Inc. is developing First-in Class, orally bioavailable cancer drugs directed towards an underappreciated tyrosine kinase target. Compounds targeting these pathways will be brought to the clinic with the potential to inhibit the growth and initiate anti-tumor immunity in a wide range of hematologic and solid malignancies.
KinoDyn
Year Founded
2013
KinoDyn, Inc. is a cancer drug discovery company that uses multiplexed inhibitor beads and mass spectroscopy to simultaneously map and quantify important cellular enzymes and kinases, and determines their kinomewide response to targeted therapeutics. KinoDyn is currently focused on challenging cancers, including triple negative breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, drug-resistant leukemias and glioblastoma.
Glycan Therapeutics
Year Founded
2012
Glycan Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company specializing in glycochemistry and based on the research of Jian Liu, Ph.D. Glycan Therapeutics develops customized forms of synthetic heparin for anticoagulant therapy and the potential treatment of other unmet medical conditions.
NeuroNano Pharma
Faculty Founder(s)
Year Founded
2011
NeuroNano Pharma has develop a series of formulation and delivery technologies that when used with current or newly discovered compounds it can 1) preserve biologics as they traverse the body, 2) improve the transport of polypeptides, proteins, hormones, enzymes and small molecules across cell membranes and tissue barriers, including the blood brain barrier, and 3) improve the release of drugs encapsulated in liposomes. NeuroNano technology has therapeutic applications in CNS disorders, metabolic diseases, cancer and ophthalmic disease.
ChemoGLO
Year Founded
2011
ChemoGLO is focused on the identification and quantification of trace surface are chemotherapy contamination in hospital and pharmacy preparation and administration areas. The ChemoGLOTM Wipe Kit uses a simple procedure to accurately quantify trace amounts of the contaminants docetaxel, paclitaxel, 5-FU, cyclophosphamide, and ifosfamide that commonly occur in hospitals and pharmacies where these drugs are processed and administered.
Arcato Laboratories
Year Founded
2011
Arcato Laboratories’ mission is to become a leading oral health company by commercializing unique, proprietary products to serve specialty oral healthcare practitioners, such as orthodontists and oral surgeons. Arcato’s first product, a medical device named OraWaxTM, targets orthodontists and their patients as the first effective treatment for oral discomfort caused by orthodontic appliances (braces). Arcato is also developing future products by expanding on its current proprietary technology platform, as well as aggressively seeking to create or in-license complementary intellectual property.
NeuroGate Therapeutics
Faculty Founder(s)
Year Founded
2011
NeuroGate has developed compounds for the treatment of neuropathic pain and epilepsy. The compounds, developed in the laboratory of Harold Kohn (the inventor of lacosamide), were designed using known and clinically proven pharmacophores. The compounds are highly potent and have a novel combination of actions on sodium channels that prevent neuronal hyperexcitability, which is the hallmark of signaling in neuropathic pain and during seizures.
Capture Pharmaceuticals
Year Founded
2010
Capture Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is developing a radionuclide decorporation agent that works by binding radioactive elements in the bloodstream and enhancing their elimination before they can be trapped inside the liver and bones where they can do much damage. Because the agent can be taken orally, it has significant advantages over currently available products, which must be administered by intravenous injection, for use in a mass casualty scenario, and is superior to other competing technologies. Capture is also pursuing the use of their product in other metal-overload conditions and diseases.
Qualiber
Faculty Founder(s)
Year Founded
2010
Qualiber, Inc. is commercializing the novel nanoparticle-based drug delivery technologies developed in Professor Leaf Huang’s lab. The novel nanoparticles address unmet needs in the delivery of small molecules, siRNA, and peptides across multiple therapeutic areas. Using this delivery platform, the company plans to create a sustainable product pipeline for small-molecule drugs that could be improved and made safer via novel delivery formulations.
Synereca Pharmaceuticals
Faculty Founder(s)
Year Founded
2009
Synereca Pharmaceuticals address the growing problem of bacterial resistance to current antibiotics by developing orally active drugs that restore or increase the effectiveness of existing antibiotics. The company’s initial program focuses on inhibiting RecA, a key enzyme in bacterial DNA repair as well as in the development and transmission of antibiotic resistance. Prototype RecA inhibitors potentiate the killing of a wide variety of pathogenic bacteria by a broad range of bactericidal antibiotics.
NovoLipid
Faculty Founder(s)
Moo Cho
Year Founded
2009
NovoLipid, Inc. is an oncology drug discovery company that formulates new chemical entity through modifications of existing oncology drugs, directed to breast and non-small cell lung cancer. This technology is expected to result in significant efficacy and tolerability advantages over the original compounds, due to significantly enhanced tumor targeting and improved kinetics, dynamics and half-life. The approach is expected to benefit cancer patients by increasing the effectiveness and tolerability of existing agents and offering better treatment options for oncologists, among others.
Qualyst Transporter Solutions
Year Founded
2003
Qualyst (originally called ADMETech) was created to pursue technology developed by researchers in Pharmacy. N0w Qualyst Transporter Solutions is the world’s exclusive provider of hepatic drug transporter products and contract research services utilizing the patented B-CLEAR® technology. No other hepatic model combines physiologic uptake and efflux transporters with hepatic metabolism. Qualyst integrated model can answer questions about compound clearance, drug transporter interactions, and cholestatic/hepatotoxic potential. Qualyst is located in Raleigh.
Asklepios BioPharmaceutical
Year Founded
2003
Asklepios BioPharmaceutical, Inc., (“AskBio”) is engaged in the development and delivery of novel protein and cellular based therapies through design of proprietary Biological Nano ParticlesTM (“BNP”). The BNP’s are a cutting-edge technology for the sustained and systemic delivery of therapeutic proteins. Once administered to the patient, the BNPsTM utilize the patient’s own muscle cells as both protein bioreactor and pump. BNPsTM are capable of addressing a platform of therapies and are currently in clinical validation.
Oriel Therapeutics (acquired by Sandoz)
Faculty Founder(s)
Year Founded
Oriel Therapeutics, a subsidiary of Sandoz, develops respiratory products as generic alternatives to patented drugs for asthma and COPD. It also develops and commercializes pre-metered unit and multi-dose dry powder delivery systems.
Cirrus
Faculty Founder(s)
Year Founded
1997
Cirrus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a contract product development company assisting biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies with dosage form development projects. Cirrus works with start-up, mid-size and multinational companies to provide a broad array of R&D services including physical and chemical characterization, formulation development, stability testing, container/closure selection, process development, as well as scale-up and technical transfer to manufacturing. Cirrus is proud to offer the world-class services of our scientific talent with expertise in the areas of inhaled, oral, topical, transdermal and parenteral product development.