NCBiotech News

URO-1, a Greensboro medical device company in prostate and soft tissue cancer diagnostics, has secured a new round of equity financing and announced additional milestones since the start of commercialization of its prostate cancer biopsy system in January 2025. GenHenn Capital, a single-family office investor in life sciences companies, led the new round of financing. Terms weren’t disclosed. The financing adds to a Series A round of $8 million announced in early 2024. In addition, URO-1 has made several recent advancements, including new study results, the development of a manufacturing cleanroom, and presentations at national urology and pathology conferences.

Genentech, considered one of the biotech industry’s founding companies, plans to build a $700 million, 700,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Holly Springs. The company expects to employ 420 people at the new high-volume fill-finish site. Genentech CEO Ashley Magargee announced the investment at its Washington, D.C., headquarters. North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein was at the event for the announcement and praised the company’s investment, which is the first major life sciences announcement of his term. "World-class companies like Genentech recognize that North Carolina is a leading state for biotechnology,” said Governor Josh Stein. “These companies know that our life science workforce is ready to help them deliver their cutting-edge medicines to the world. We are proud to welcome Genentech to North Carolina.”

A statewide partnership to boost workforce training and career opportunities in North Carolina’s life sciences manufacturing industry has won an accolade from a national business publication. Business Facilities, a source of news and trends for site-selection decision-makers, recognized the Accelerate NC Coalition with a 2025 Economic Development Organization award. The Accelerate NC Coalition is a statewide partnership dedicated to strengthening North Carolina’s life sciences manufacturing workforce. It is led by the North Carolina Biotechnology Center with involvement by several industrial, academic and economic development partners.

SonoVascular, a Chapel Hill medical device startup focusing on treating potentially life-threatening blood clots, has earned the top life sciences award from the Angel Capital Association. The association honored SonoVascular with the 2025 Luis Villalobos Award in the life science category at the industry group’s recent conference in Denver. The group cited SonoVascular’s innovations in treating venous thromboembolism (VTE), or a blood clot that forms in a vein. “This award provides recognition of the importance of both the clinical need and the transformative nature of our technology to treat VTE,” Daniel Estay, SonoVascular’s founder and CEO.

Durham-based restor3d, a developer of three-dimensional printed implants for orthopedic use, has raised $38 million in venture capital.  The funding was raised from both existing and new private investors, including Summers Value Partners of Denver. “This funding allows us to further scale our technology, expand access to truly personalized care, and continue setting new standards in orthopedic treatment,” said Kurt Jacobus, chief executive officer and co-founder of restor3d. “We are redefining what’s possible in orthopedics to better serve our surgeons and patients.”

The North Carolina Life Sciences Apprenticeship Consortium (NCLSAC) was founded in 2022 as part of the Accelerate NC Life Sciences Manufacturing coalition, funded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration Build Back Better Regional Challenge (BBBRC). The coalition, led by NCBiotech, promotes life sciences training and job opportunities to distressed communities across North Carolina. The 12 current employer partners include Amgen, Biogen, CSL Seqirus, FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies, KBI Biopharma, Körber Pharma Software, Lilly, Merck, Novartis, Novonesis, Novo Nordisk, and Pfizer. The NCLSAC has leveraged BBBRC grant funds to award more than 254 BioWork scholarships at 9 community colleges statewide, enabling valuable pre-apprenticeship training. To date, seven of the NCLSAC member companies have hired 38 apprentices.

Phinite, Inc., a sustainable agtech company, has launched a new regional Sustainability Cluster in Sampson County, N.C., advancing its mission to produce high performance, regenerative fertilizers through circular economy principles and innovative drying technology. By transforming the agricultural byproduct hog manure into odorless, nutrient rich, granular fertilizer, Phinite enables farmers to improve soil health and crop yield while supporting long term environmental stewardship. The initiative helps address a pressing global challenge: reducing agriculture’s reliance on mined phosphorus, a non-renewable resource essential to crop production. Phinite’s Sampson County operations are creating a regional hub for advanced hog manure drying technology using advanced robotics. Hog farmers within the county and bordering regions gain an additional revenue stream through providing an agricultural byproduct.

There’s strength in numbers in the global pharmaceutical marketplace, so a small Durham pharmaceutical company is adding numbers to launch its novel prescription drug that won federal marketing approval last year. Pelthos Therapeutics, a Durham-based wholly owned subsidiary of Ligand Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: LGND), is combining with Channel Therapeutics (NYSE American: CHRO) to help with the launch of Pelthos’ drug ZELSUVMI. The deal, expected to close by the end of this summer, also includes $50 million in equity capital raised from a group of strategic investors led by Murchinson. Novan, a spinout from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, developed Pelthos’ drug ZELSUVMI. Novan went bankrupt in 2023 before it could commercialize its proprietary nitric oxide-based technology. So Pelthos bought the rights to the drug and ushered it through the 2024 approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Gene therapy continues to advance, with 26 gene therapies approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as of April 2025. Yet key challenges remain, especially in managing the level and duration of gene expression following treatment. Epigenos Biosciences Inc., a spinout from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is addressing this gap by harnessing epigenetics to develop therapies with greater precision and control. “We hope to change the way people do gene therapy in the future,” said Joe Ruiz, co-founder of Epigenos. “By offering a way to control gene expression after treatment, we can make therapies safer and more adaptable — ultimately improving outcomes for patients who need them most.”

FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies, a global contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) with major operations in North Carolina, has signed an agreement valued at over $3 billion to produce biologic medicines for Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. Under the terms of the 10-year agreement, FUJIFILM will provide U.S.-based manufacturing for Regeneron through current and planned expansions at its new biopharmaceutical production facility in Holly Springs, N.C., when the site begins operations later this year. “This agreement with an industry-leading biologic medicines company demonstrates that FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies is trusted by our partners to deliver through our technical expertise, talented team and operational readiness,” said Toshihisa Iida, director, corporate vice president, general manager of Life Sciences Strategy Headquarters and Bio-CDMO Division of FUJIFILM Corp.

The Piedmont Triad Regenerative Medicine Engine (PTRME) presented its first large-scale workshop, The Founders’ Journey, on April 14 and 15 to support biotech researchers, founders, and entrepreneurs. “PTRME’s top goal is to create a cooperative ecosystem in which researchers can commercialize their biotechnology and regenerative medicine solutions, create jobs and impact economic development—and that begins by establishing a strong entrepreneurial foundation,” said Tim Bertram, CEO of PTRME. “We have the unique opportunity to build an industrial-academic ecosystem focused on regenerative medicine commercialization that does not exist anywhere else in the world.”

William H. Janeway, who’s been involved in the technology and life sciences investing world for more than five decades, can easily recount the successes that date back to his early days as an investment banker in the 1970s. But what also stands out to the distinguished affiliated professor of economics at the UK’s Cambridge University is a notable miss. “We were given the opportunity to engage with Genentech in 1977, two years before its IPO [initial public offering], and we turned it down. We were wrong,” said Janeway, who offered his lessons learned over a 55-year career in life sciences and technology investing during a recent lecture at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.

For many of us in the drug development industry, cell and gene therapies (CGT) can create intoxicating levels of hope for the patients who need them. This field is rapidly expanding, offering exciting possibilities for treating a wide range of diseases while providing veritable cures for some forms of hemophilia, sickle cell disease, blindness and deafness. However, the complexities of CGT trials present unique challenges for the trial sites that first bring these unapproved investigational drugs to test subjects. For trial sites, CGT trials often result in intense resourcing workflows and requirements, leading to under-resourced healthcare teams. This hinders the advancement of these potentially life-changing treatments.

Cambrex, a New Jersey-based global contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), celebrated the grand opening of its new Q1 Scientific stability storage facility in Durham, the company’s third facility and its first in the U.S. The event on Thursday, April 10, was attended by employees, local government representatives, trade organizations, and leaders from the life sciences industry, who were given the opportunity to tour the state-of-the-art cGMP facility. The tour included the environmentally controlled stability storage suite, analytical chemistry laboratories, and reference standards suite.

Better collaboration in agriculture-biotechnology would help propel the industry forward, a panel of experts said at the AgBio conference for North Carolina and Virginia ag-bio leaders. “I don’t think we should be innovating in silos,” said Toni Bucci, founder and CEO of Sable Fermentation, a Wake Forest biomanufacturer that helps food and ag-bio companies scale precision fermentation. “The food and ag industries are a little behind the pharmaceutical industry. If we really want to advance, we need to get past the barrier of working in silos and share information.” Collaboration between ag-bio companies and between industry and academia took center stage during an afternoon panel discussion at AgBio 2025: Innovating Agricultural Resilience.