BioSTL

This Issue's Content

BioGenerator Helps Relocate Tansna Therapeutics to St. Louis

Accelerate St. Louis Calls the St. Louis Entrepreneurial Community to Stand Up & Be Counted

Washington University Bear Cub Fund Brings Technologies to Market

Educational Initiatives Focus on the STEM Fields

News About the Biosciences in St. Louis
 

BioGenerator Helps Relocate Tansna Therapeutics to St. Louis

Recently, the BioGenerator announced that it had closed on a Spark Fund investment in Tansna Therapeutics, to support commercialization of the company’s epilepsy drugs and to relocate the company to St. Louis from Iowa. Tansna President, serial entrepreneur Dr. Robert Karr, said “The thriving life-sciences ecosystem and access to capital make St. Louis the right place for Tansna to take the next steps in its growth as a company.”
 
Tansna is a drug discovery and development company founded in 2010 to create and commercialize oral drugs to treat epilepsy. Nearly 1 in 26 people will develop epilepsy in their lifetime. A significant need for more effective and safer antiepileptic drugs remains – indeed, approximately 30% of epilepsy patients are refractory, or unresponsive, to currently available therapeutics. Tansna has discovered novel compounds that are highly effective in several animal models of epilepsy, including refractory epilepsy.

The company will locate in the BioGenerator’s Accelerator Labs facility at CORTEX.
 
The BioGenerator investment is a partial match to a $200,000 investment commitment from the Missouri Technology Corporation and leverages a recent Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award received by Tansna. The work of Alan MacInnes as an EIR is supported through the St. Louis Bioscience Jobs and Innovation Accelerator Challenge grant funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Agency (EDA).
 

Accelerate St. Louis Calls the St. Louis Entrepreneurial Community to Stand Up & Be Counted

The Accelerate St. Louis platform helps startups and investors connect with each other and with St. Louis’ extensive network of entrepreneurial support organizations through its online navigation tool. Make sure you are connected to the entrepreneurial community by adding your information at www.acceleratestlouis.org.
 

Washington University's Bear Cub Fund Brings Technologies to Market

St. Louis has a strong and growing presence of early-stage funding for launching new bioscience companies with key support coming from Arch Grants, BioGenerator, and the St. Louis Arch Angels. Yet, as in other regions across the globe, challenges exist for executing proof-of-concept studies to move innovative research closer to commercial viability. To encourage entrepreneurship on campus and address this gap, Washington University created the Bear Cub Fund to support researchers in translational studies not normally funded by federal grants from the NIH, NSF, and other traditional sources.
 
Since its founding in 2008, the Bear Cub Fund has attracted 107 proposals from 83 researchers in 14 departments.  The Fund has invested more than $1.1 million in 26 of the proposals with individual grants ranging from $20,000 to $75,000. The funding has supported emerging technologies in areas such as medical devices and diagnostics, cancer therapy, treatment of infectious diseases, and imaging and data analysis software and launched startup companies including Acuplaq, CardioWise, RadTargX, Retectix, and Vasculox.
 
To further encourage entrepreneurship and commercialization, the university’s Office of Technology Management (OTM), which oversees the program, is now providing more hands-on guidance and incorporating other changes to help university scientists commercialize their discoveries.  “Many scientists have expressed an interest in the Bear Cub program, but they aren’t quite sure how to present their ideas or develop a proposal,” says Bradley Castanho, PhD, who heads OTM. “We think providing mentors and hands-on assistance is essential to cultivating entrepreneurs and understanding of the commercialization process, so we are tapping into the resources of the university’s Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and the St. Louis community.”
 
The Bear Cub application process now involves two stages. Initially, researchers submit a short, one-page application and give a two-minute oral “pitch” about their technology. From these applications, the university recently selected 8 finalists who each received $1,000 to help draft a full Bear Cub proposal with help from a business mentor.  St. Louis community organizations that foster entrepreneurship, including the BALSA Group, BioSTL, BioGenerator, and InnovateVMS, will partner with OTM to provide mentors who can offer their advice and expertise to help craft proposals and move university technologies into the marketplace.  The final selection will occur in early March and up to $250,000 will be invested across the selected projects. For more information about the Bear Cub Fund and other translational research efforts at WU, click here for OTM’s website.
 

Educational Initiatives Focus on the STEM Fields

St. Louis’ continued growth as a hub for the biosciences has been accompanied by an increased demand of qualified candidates to fill these high-tech jobs. St. Louis Community College and Washington University are among those responding to this need by implementing programs to engage the local population in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields.

St. Louis Community College is currently seeking participants for its third iteration of the 16-week Bridge to STEM-Life Science program. The workforce training program, which is a part of the $12 million Training for Tomorrow initiative launched by Governor Jay Nixon in 2009, is an accelerated curriculum meant to give people the skills they need to start as lab assistants or fill other entry-level jobs in the life sciences. The classes are taught at the state-of-the-art Bio-Research & Development Growth (BRDG) Park placing them at the heart of the St. Louis life science ecosystem.
 
The Community College also recently hosted an “Insights in Biotechnology” event to examine regional bioscience workforce issues arising from its State of the St. Louis Workforce report. Kelly Gillepsie, Executive Director of the Missouri Biotechnology Association, kicked off the discussion hosted by Steve Long, Associate Vice Chancellor of Workforce Solutions Group and Richard Norris, Director for Plant and Life Science at St. Louis Community College. Ben Johnson, Program Director at BioSTL, also shared the efforts of the St. Louis Bioscience Inclusion Initiative aimed at promoting diversity in St. Louis’ bioscience ecosystem.

Washington University is shaping the St. Louis region’s next generation of scientists by engaging K-12 students in science through interactive learning experiences and creative curriculum. With the help of a $2.2 million grant from the Monsanto Fund, the MySci Resource Center recently reopened its doors after refurbishment to add an instructional and interactive area for teachers to the educational classrooms, meeting rooms, and warehouse of educational science materials already provided.
 

News About the Biosciences in St. Louis

• Sigma Aldrich set to spur growth from India; opens maiden Global Shared Services Centre [PharmaBiz]
• New Design Could Reduce Complications in Hip Replacement - featuring 2nd year Med student at Saint Louis University [ScienceDaily]
• Erster Patient in Deutschland mit EndoStim® LES-Stimulationssystem gegen gastroösophagealen Reflux behandelt [FinanzNachrichten]
• EndoStim treats first patient in Germany [St. Louis Business Journal]
• ITEN and Kauffman bringing 1 Million Cups program to St. Louis [St. Louis Business Journal]
• 707 Startups Vying for 20 Arch Grants This Year [KMOX]
• Startups Share Why St. Louis Is A Great Location At SMCSTL [Techli]
• Allos Ventures will invest in the Midwest with new $40M fund for early-stage technologies [MedCity News]
• Monsanto Supports BioGenerator through Loaned Executive [MarketWatch]
• High-Tech Choir Master - featuring the co-director of the Genome Institute at Washington University [TheScientist]
• Mayor Francis Slay approves CORTEX development plan [KSDK]
• Rare Genomics Institute and Assay Depot awards $500,000 worth of research for rare diseases
• NIH grant to enable researchers to create 3-D models to study brain mechanics - featuring Washington University [FierceHealthIT]
• Electrochaea partners with Swiss utilities to develop power-to-gas technology [Energy Business Review]
• In The Lab: Research roundup [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

BioSTL News

BioSTL Searching for Director of Capital Formation and Investor Relations

BioSTL recently created the position of Director of Capital Formation and Investor Relations to join in our efforts to increase the availability of investment capital for St. Louis bioscience startups.  Please see our job posting for more information.
 

Branding the Biosciences in St. Louis


The January 31st event

While ten years ago St. Louis already had universities and corporations of bioscience renown, in the last decade tremendous progress has occurred in building assets and support systems that are spurring ever-increasing entrepreneurial activity and attracting talent to the region.  BioSTL is spearheading an effort to help St. Louis better tell its bioscience “story” to a range of audiences nationally and globally.  With collaborators that include Innovate St. Louis, BRDG Park and the Danforth Plant Science Center, CORTEX, Monsanto, Washington University, and the Regional Chamber, which is helping to fund the effort, BioSTL aims to develop a framework that regional partners can build upon and enhance their own outreach while reinforcing common themes.  For more on the effort, see the story in the St. Louis Business Journal.
 
After interviews and focus groups involving dozens of investors, entrepreneurs, and corporate people in and especially outside St. Louis, on January 31 BioSTL over 100 stakeholders, who in spite of a snow storm, gathered to help shape St. Louis’ bioscience story. To see more pictures from the January 31 collaborative event, click here.