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New Ventures

Many technologies are best suited to licensing but some could serve as the basis for starting a new company. OCR actively seeks to identify opportunities to form new business ventures. We develop business plans and strategies and identify seed-level funding sources for these ventures.

New Companies in Development

  • Axomedis.    Yale is actively partnering to found a biopharmaceutical development company.  The Company is focused on the Nogo receptor, a promising therapeutic for spinal cord injury, TMI, and stroke.  Discussions with potential executives and/or board members to lead the new company are underway.  A local executive search firm is engaged to find or recruit talent for a New Haven-based headquarters.
  • New Haven Pharmaceuticals.   Yale is establishing a specialty pharmaceuticals company based around three Yale pharmaceutical technologies.   These include glutamate receptor modulators as adjunct therapeutics for depression and obsessive compulsive disorder; improved gastric disease therapeutics; and hepato-protectant technology.  Licenses have been executed for the first two programs, and negotiations are proceeding for the third.  The core of a New Haven-based management team is in place, and meetings with venture investors are underway.
  • Advanced Orthopedic Technologies.  Yale has partnered to cofound a company to develop a series of surgical inventions for cartilage defect repair and joint fusion.   The company has received an investment proposal from a local venture firm.
  • 3primiR.   Yale scientists have formed a diagnostics company based upon Yale's discoveries of the important and predictive roles of mutations affecting micro RNA in cancers. An initial seed financing for the company has been secured.  OCR has made a significant effort to develop a broad IP strategy for the company, and has  executed licenses for the technology.  The company expects to establish research operations in New Haven. 
  • CBT4CBT    Yale is working with a local entrepreneur to develop a business plan and secure initial funding to bring the computer-based cognitive therapy product for addiction to market. 
  • CardioPhotonics.  Yale has licensed technology to develop a blood volume status monitor.

Major Developments & Financing with Existing Companies

Oasys Water - LogoYale University's New Venture, Oasys Water, Inc., Secures $10 Million in Series A Financing

 

Vion Logo Vion submitted a New Drug Application with the U.S. FDA for its lead anticancer agent Onrigin™ (laromustine, also known as Cloretazine) for patients sixty years of age or older with de novo poor-risk acute myeloid leukemia.  The product was discovered by Alan Sartorelli and is under license from Yale.

Achillion Achillion completed a Phase II trial for elvucitabine in HIV in 2008 and is currently seeking  a partnership with a large pharmaceutical company.   The company succeeded in raising an additional $41.5 million in August 2008.

Proteolix Proteolix announced positive data from two ongoing Phase 2 clinical trials of Carfilzomib in multiple myeloma at the annual ASH meeting in December 2008.   In September 2008 the company raised $79 million to support ongoing clinical development. 

See full size image Helix Therapeutics secured $965K from Connecticut Innovations, Launch Capital, and other investors in March 2009.  The company is developing DNA-based therapeutics invented by Peter Glazer aimed at correcting genetic defects in diseases such as sickle cell anemia.

See full size image Rib-X announced positive final results from a Phase 2 clinical trial of its novel fluoroquinolone antibiotic, delafloxacin, in the treatment of complicated skin and skin structure infections (cSSSI) in January 2009 coincident with closing on a $25 million financing, which will fund the ongoing development of its pipeline of novel antibiotics.

Major Developments with Licensed Pipeline Products

Shire Shire resubmitted Intuniv (guanfacine) to the FDA of the New Drug Application in January 2009 to support registration for the treatment of ADHD in children.  Guanfacine was invented by Amy Arnsten and is under license to Shire.   Shire anticipates launch of Intuniv in second half of 2009. 

Pharmasset, Inc. Pharmasset continues to enroll patients in two Phase 3 clinical trials of clevudine for the treatment of HBV.  These 48 week studies are to involve a total of 856 patients in order to seek approval in the U.S. and Europe.   Clevudine is Pharmasset’s highest priority program, and the company successfully raised $45 million in January 2009 to fund the program. The drug is currently sold in Korea and was recently approved in the Philippines, where it will be marketed by sublicensee Eisai.

Tigris Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Tigris has received IND approval to initiate clinical studies of GGTI-2418 which will become the first geranylgeranyltransferase-I inhibitor in clinical trials.  The compound was discovered by former Yale Provost Andy Hamilton and is under license to Tigris.

 

 
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