$68.5K NCBiotech Loan Helps SciKon Product Launch

Research Triangle Park startup SciKon Innovation plans to expand its line of “biotool” product offerings with $68,500 in loan help from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.

SciKon plans to use its newly awarded Small Business Research Loan to commercialize a disposable device for lab use in drug discovery, drug safety, and regenerative medicine.

SciKon was founded by 28-year Air Force veteran Lt. Col. Randall McClelland, Ph.D. As part of his military activities, McClelland is assigned to first response groups that scramble to evaluate how environmental hazards acutely affect human health. McClelland saw a need for better testing systems, and established SciKon in 2009 to create them.

The company now supplies human cell products to meet researchers’ needs for accurate and efficient systems that can model human biology in the laboratory, including responses to toxins.

SciKon will use the NCBiotech loan to expand its product offerings to include cell culture consumables with specialized functions, such as its ready-to-use SciFlow Microtiter Plate.

SciKon Vice President and Director of Product Development Maureen Bunger, Ph.D., said the company’s human cell derivatives, support media, and disposable device products have the potential to provide users with complete in vitro, or “test tube,” system platforms for drug discovery, efficacy, and toxicity testing.  

SciKon is currently located at First Flight Venture Center, a business incubator opened in RTP in 1992 to provide support and mentoring to new technology and life science companies.

“FFVC and NCBiotech together have been instrumental in our start-up efforts,” said McClelland.

“SciKon is a great example of a company that continues to develop and drive new successes,” said Andrew Schwab, Ph.D., president of First Flight. “We are pleased the Biotechnology Center has selected them for this strategic loan”.

In 2013 NC Biotech also awarded SciKon $3,000 in one of the Center’s eight Industrial Internship grants for the year.

The internships are for undergraduate and graduate students with backgrounds in business and/or the life sciences, to help support the work of life science-based companies and non-profit organizations.

NCBiotech has also provided more than $85,000 in grant support to FFVC.

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