NCBiotech Portfolio Companies Among Life Science Conference Presenters

Several North Carolina Biotechnology Center portfolio companies are among the array of life science startups presenting their wares at the 2019 CED Life Science Conference today and Wednesday at the Raleigh Convention Center, including some that presented a year ago.

• PhosphoGam, a North Carolina Biotechnology Center portfolio company, was among 26 North Carolina life science companies chosen to present at last year’s CED Life Science Conference, and it’s back on the list for the 2019 conference. Other returning companies include RedBud Labs (also an NCBiotech portfolio company), and StrideBio.
• NCBiotech awarded Durham startup PhosphoGam a $250,000 Small Business Research Loan in 2018 to support preclinical proof-of-concept studies in mice. The cell therapy company is focused on exploiting the potent antitumor activity of human gamma/delta T cells for the cellular immunotherapy of cancer. 
• RedBud Labs, a Research Triangle Park spinout from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has developed a unique diagnostic tool called Redbud Posts. It’s a micro-electromechanical system technology conceived in the labs of Richard Superfine, Ph.D. The technology mimics the behavior of cilia, the microscopic hair-like structures used to manipulate fluids in a wide range of organisms, from bacteria to cells lining the human airway.
• StrideBio, which operates out of the BioLabs space in downtown Durham, develops engineered viral vectors for gene therapy targeting rare diseases. StrideBio's technology engine uses structure-inspired design to engineer novel adeno-associated viral vectors which can escape pre-existing neutralizing antibodies (NAbs).

Other young life science companies drawing interest at this year’s life science conference include:

• Arrevus, a 2017 Raleigh startup, which is developing novel therapeutics for unmet medical needs in areas with high treatment failure rates, including infectious disease, brain cancer and breast cancer.
• TregTherapeutics, formed in Chapel Hill in 2017, which develops therapies to treat autoimmune disease. The company is currently developing a so-called tolerogenic vaccine to eradicate multiple sclerosis.
• BioAesthetics Corporation, a 2015 Tulane University spinout which has subsequently moved to Durham from New Orleans. The company’s initial product is a tissue-engineered nipple-areolar complex (NAC) designed to improve reconstruction options for breast cancer patients after they undergo mastectomies. This product will be provided to plastic and reconstructive surgeons as an off-the-shelf ready, acellular, NAC graft.