New Med-tech, Pharma Companies Come Out Of UC Davis
Source: Sacramento Business Journal, Felicia Alvarez
Photo: Dushyant Pathak is the executive director of UC Davis’ Venture Catalyst program, which helps launch startups based on university research. (DENNIS MCCOY, SACRAMENTO BUSINESS JOURNAL)
Medical technology and pharmaceutical companies continue to come out of the University of California Davis’ program to produce startups.
In the fiscal year that ended June 30, 14 startups were launched with technology developed at UC Davis, the university said last week. Nine of those are focused on med-tech and pharmaceutical products.
This marks the sixth year that the Venture Catalyst program has operated out of the university. The program connects university-affiliated researchers and entrepreneurs with resources to turn their research into commercial products, acquire patents and secure early-stage funding for their startups.
Dushyant Pathak, executive director of Venture Catalyst, says it isn’t unusual for med-tech startups to dominate the lineup of new companies, since the university brings in hundreds of millions of dollars for medical research from the National Institutes of Health each year.
“We are strongly and firmly a life sciences campus, so we’re known for the fact that we’re No. 1 in the agriculture space, the animal health space and the medicine space,” Pathak said. “Those are important drives for the kind of funders we see.”
From 2013 to 2018, about 77% of the program’s startups were in life sciences and medicine, compared to 16% that focused on technology and engineering and 7% that focused on agriculture, Pathak said.
The majority of those companies also stayed in the Sacramento region, according to the university. About 72% have remained in the Sacramento or Davis region and 19% stayed in California, while 6% of the program’s startups are still in the country and 3% have moved abroad.
“As you know, startups coming out of any university are typically at a very early stage,” Pathak said. “They really do benefit to have proximity to where the founding technology was located.”
To support the growth of those startups, the Venture Catalyst program has been expanding its number of partners for incubator space. Over the last year, the program partnered with MedCatalyst, an incubator lab on the UC Davis Medical Center campus in Sacramento, as well as Bayer Crop Science in West Sacramento, Pathak said.
In the previous five years of the program, its affiliated startups have secured a total of $18.1 million in federal Small Business Innovation Research funding, $369 million in angel and venture funding, and $250,000 in grants per year that the university earmarks for the program, according to UC Davis.
“We want them to focus on producing the results that really are emblematic of the kind of milestones that are value-generating and de-risking,” so that they can acquire more funding, Pathak said.
The full list of new startups includes:
Agrinerds: The developer of a data-management and visualization tool for the agriculture industry.
Bouncer Technologies: A maker of software to help protect apps against fraud, account takeover, coupon abuse and other risks.
Delix Therapeutics: A maker of compounds for increasing neural plasticity.
Digestiva: A developer of enzymes that enhance the availability of protein in food products.
EffectorBio: A developer of biomarker-based drugs.
eVitals Technologies: A certified registry of birth certificates that uses blockchain technology.
GalactMed: The developer of a new potential cancer drug.
Keen Therapeutics: The developer of a fermented wheat germ extract to treat lung cancer.
NanoCue Technology: An atomic force microscopy-based platform for investigating single-cell mechanics.
Seven Biosciences: A platform for drug discovery.
Sierra Biopharma: A developer of peptides and uses for diagnosing and treating the autoimmune disease myasthenia gravis.
Syncanica: The developer of a synthetic cannabinoid to reduce the frequency and severity of seizures.
Theranostec: A nanoplatform loaded with active pharmaceutical ingredients.
One company elected to remain in “stealth mode” for competitive reasons and was not identified by UC Davis.