A Medical Device Daily

Harvard University’s (Cambridge, Massachusetts) Office of Technology Development (OTD) reported the launch of the second round of its Technology Development Accelerator Fund, a new initiative designed to propel emerging technologies originating from the University’s biomedical and life science research community into clinical development and, ultimately, the marketplace.

Six initial projects were funded by the Accelerator in the first round, spanning a myriad of disease areas, including HIV, cancer and diabetes, at a cumulative budget $1.3 million.

The Accelerator Fund is now seeking proposals from Harvard faculty for its second round of funding, also of $1.3 million. (Medical Device Daily was not able to get an estimate for the total amount OTD hoped to raise in this round by press time.)

The OTD said that inventions arising from one of the first group of research projects supported by the accelerator during its initial year of operation have already been licensed to industry, thus providing early and compelling validation of the fund’s core strategy to boost early-stage inventions to the “take-off” point where they become attractive candidates for commercial development.

Inventions from the laboratory of Jos Halperin, MD, and Gerhard Wagner, PhD, at Harvard Medical School (Boston) were licensed to Egenix (Millbrook, New York), a privately-held biotechnology company. The licensed technologies comprise small molecule inhibitors of translation initiation of protein synthesis, which represent a new approach to creating target-specific, non-cytotoxic anti-cancer therapy, OTD said. Also licensed were translation initiation-specific biomarkers to assess tumor sensitivity to these therapies.

Harvard launched the Accelerator Fund last year with $6 million in private donations, and seeks further donations to support additional research to bridge, it said, the “development gap,” encountered by scientists when promising early-stage inventions lack validation or “proof of concept” necessary to attract development partners from industry and the venture capital community.

“As one of the world’s foremost research universities, Harvard has a special obligation to foster the development and translation of promising new technologies that could benefit the public and society as a whole,” said Steven Hyman, MD, Provost, Harvard University. “The Accelerator Fund serves as a novel gateway for bringing Harvard-generated inventions to the marketplace rapidly, where they can provide the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people.”

The Accelerator Fund is managed by Harvard’s OTD, in consultation with an advisory committee, appointed by the provost, comprised of what Hyman termed “recognized thought leaders from the Harvard faculty, industry and the venture capital community.”

The OTD also reported the appointment of Curtis Keith, PhD, as chief scientific officer for the fund. Keith will manage the life science R&D projects supported by the fund.

In other financing news:

• Cytori Therapeutics (San Diego) said it has entered into an equity agreement with Green Hospital Supply (GHS; Tokyo).

GHS, Cytori’s StemSource commercialization partner for Japan, will purchase 2 million shares of unregistered Cytori common stock at $6 a share and be granted a non-voting observer seat on Cytori’s board. The transaction will close on or before Feb. 28, subject to satisfaction of closing conditions. Following the transaction, GHS’s ownership in Cytori will increase to 3 million shares, representing 11.5% of Cytori’s total shares.

The foundation of the StemSource Cellbank is Cytori’s Celution System, which automates the separation and concentration of stem and regenerative cells residing within adipose tissue so they may be prepared for cryopreservation.

Kunihisa Furukawa, president of GHS, said, “We have identified Cytori’s StemSource Cellbank product as one of the primary foundations of our future growth. In addition, we believe their vision, products and business model will create the global leader in regenerative medicine.”

“This strategic equity agreement strengthens our commercialization partnership with Green Hospital Supply, who will play an instrumental role in our future success,” said Christopher Calhoun, CEO of Cytori. “Simultaneously this deal provides us with capital to invest in the development and commercialization of our Celution System.”

• Expression Pathology (EPI; Gaithersburg, Maryland) said it has obtained $125,000 from the State of Maryland to develop a quantitative test for HER2 protein, a biomarker in breast cancer tissue samples. The funding is part of the Maryland Technology Development Corp’s Maryland Technology Transfer Fund and the Maryland Venture Fund’s Challenge Investment Program.

Using tissue processing technologies, EPI is developing an assay for HER2 (human epidermal growth factor receptor 2) in breast cancer. EPI’s Liquid Tissue reagents and Director laser microdissection slides are used to extract proteins from standard formalin-fixed tissue. These proteins are then analyzed by mass spectrometry techniques. Current methods of analysis relying on visual interpretation of staining patterns in tissue have limitations, according to recent articles and studies, the company said.

“Our tissue proteomics technologies have already been adopted by major academic and industrial customers for research use. We believe that diagnostic assays utilizing mass spectrometry for tissue analysis have the potential to greatly improve patient treatment decisions, especially in cancer, where tissue biopsy and surgery are routine,” said Casey Eitner, EPI’s president/CEO.