UNC Startups

908 Devices

908 Devices is bringing the powerful capabilities of mass spectrometry out of the confines of centralized laboratories. 908 Devices’ products range from rugged, handheld chemical detection tools to compact, dedicated analyzers for researchers, serving a range of industries including safety and security, life science research, biotechnology, food safety and clinical diagnostics.

Advanced Chemotherapy Technologies

Advanced Chemotherapy Technologies (ACT) is developing an implantable device to infuse chemotherapy drugs directly into the pancreas, targeting difficult-to-reach tumors while largely sparing surrounding tissues, organs and blood vessels. The device, about the size of a quarter, would be implanted in the pancreas with electrical leads running to the abdomen. The device would drive chemotherapy into the tumor using electrical currents that pass through the drug solution, a process called iontophoresis. The technology would convert patients with locally advanced non-resectable disease into candidates for surgical resection, by shrinking the tumor away from these vital structures, improving quality of life and extending survival.

Founders: Jen Yeh, Joseph DeSimone, James Byrne

AI Tracking Solutions

AI Tracking Solutions (AITS) is combining machine learning and artificial intelligence to provide cloud-based, fully automated video tracking analysis software to microscopy community. Their technology focuses on an artificial neural network that can perform convolutions in space and time to infer particle locations. AITS’ cloud-based software algorithms provide rapid and truly objective analysis, are expected to popularize particle tracking as a tool for big data imaging techniques and development of advance microscopy and particle sizing instruments. The software can accurately and fully automatically track entities from nanoparticles to viruses to bacteria to cells and generates individual traces and statistical analysis of the traces.

Founder: Sam Lai

Altis Biosystems

Altis Biosystems has developed a patent-pending human stem cell platform, which recreates both small and large intestinal tissue for drug screening and microbiome research for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Altis’ technology is high-throughput and produces reproducible results to meet the drug research and development demands of the pharma industry. It is meant to replace Caco-2 (cancer) cells, the current industry standard, and reduce the need for animal testing. Our goal is to reduce the time and cost of drug development with a platform that more accurately reflects native human biology.

Founders: Nancy Allbritton, Yuli Wang, Michael Biron, Chris Sims, Scott Magness

Aquagenx

Aquagenx provides portable water-quality testing products that detect E. coli bacteria. The Compartment Bag Test is simple to use and does not require complex equipment or electricity, making it ideal for place with fewer resources including developing countries and emergency/disaster areas.

Asklêpios BioPharmaceutical, Inc. (“AskBio”)

AskBio is advancing AAV gene therapy technologies developed in the Gene Therapy Center at UNC-CH. They have proprietary programs related to AAV capsid development, scaled-up manufacturing, and multiple therapeutic programs in the areas of neuromuscular, CNS and heart diseases.

Bivarus, Inc.

Bivarus develops improved patient satisfaction and experience survey tools. The Bivarus analytics platform utilizes a proprietary statistical framework to generate scientifically valid, real-time data using electronically delivered patient experience surveys. Comprehensive reporting/tracking tools and workspace features facilitate active data management and continuous improvement, resulting in safer, more efficient and profitable healthcare environments. Bivarus was acquired by Press Ganey in 2018.

Blue Current, Inc.

Blue Current is developing novel materials for improved battery performance.

Capture Pharmaceuticals

Capture Pharmaceuticals has developed a novel chelating compound for the removal of toxic metals, including gadolinium present in MRI contrast agents, lead, and radioactive metals.

Cell Microsystems, Inc.

Cell Microsystems develops cell separation and isolation tools. The CellRaftTM technology permits rapid and efficient separation and isolation of single cells.

ChemoGLO

ChemoGLO develops technologies that detect and remove chemotherapy drug contamination in hospitals, pharmacies, and laboratories through its ChemoGLO Wipe Kit and the Hazardous Drug Clean (HDClean) towelette cleaning system.

Codetta Bio

Codetta Bio is advancing and expanding life science research and diagnostic capabilities by providing streamlined, easy-to-use, multiomic, highly multiplexed digital assay solutions. Codetta Bio will set a new standard of multiomic performance and simplicity, enabling customers to gain greater insight from a single sample and accelerate transformational research.

Founder: J. Michael Ramsey

Cortical Metrics, Inc.

Cortical Metrics develops quantitative, noninvasive measures of brain health that can address a broad spectrum of neurological disorders.

Counter Tools, Inc.

Counter Tools is a not-for-profit business that provides training, software tools, and technical assistance to public health and disease-prevention organizations.

Cymantix

Cymantix is a company established in 2016 and spun-off from the Laboratory of Applied Informatics Research (LAIR) at UNC Chapel Hill’s Carolina Health Informatics Program. The Cymantix team has brought together years of experience in cloud architecture & computing, digital libraries, information retrieval, computational linguistics, bioinformatics, and biomedical informatics in order to build the latest version of a prototype application called Publication Access Through Tiered Interaction & Exploration (PATTIE – pattie.unc.edu). PATTIE is a highly visual-spatial and voice-enabled unsupervised machine learning platform that records and organizes transcripts of biomedical literature search strategies into re-executable, extensible, and shareable “search notebooks” that can be utilized as a collaboration device among research teams during their initial information-seeking phases within the biomedical literature and thus saving time, increasing efficiency, enabling methodological replication, and accelerating biomedical discovery.

Founder: Javed Mostafa

Dualogics

At Dualogics, our vision is to use the latest advancements in protein engineering to create improved antibody therapies. We collaborate globally to bring our technologies and expertise to drug discovery campaigns across all therapeutic areas. Dualogics display uses combinatorial screening to test all pairwise combinations of multi-chain biologics. Our designs are genetically barcoded for efficient sequence recovery and identification of rare clones using next-generation sequencing. Our libraries utilize full-length mAb scaffolds, ensuring each member is expressed in a similar format as it will be in lead optimization/development.

Founders: Brian Kuhlman, Ryan Hallet, Tim Jacobs

Entegrion

Entegrion develops biological and medical-device technologies to enhance the safety and availability of the human blood supply. Entegrion has developed a lyophilized blood substitute product which is far more stable than stored human platelets and effective at stopping bleeding.

Enzerna Biosciences

Enzerna Biosciences has developed a proprietary platform technology to engineer sequence-specific RNA endonucleases. This technology is designed to treat disease by degrading toxic RNA in a programmable way that is distinct from CRISPR/Cas DNA editing technology. The technology is particularly well suited to address nucleotide expansion disorders such as Huntington’s Disease.

Founder: Zefeng Wang, Joseph Ruiz

EpiCypher

EpiCypher develops and manufactures novel tools and reagents for epigenetics drug development and chromatin biology research.

Epizyme, Inc.

Epizyme is a clinical stage epigenetics company that is developing small molecule inhibitors of histone methyltransferases for multiple oncology indications.

Eppin Pharma, Inc.

Eppin Pharma is an emerging pharmaceutical company focused on developing a safe, effective short-term, non-hormonal oral male contraceptive pill. Their lead candidate is a small organic compound, EP055, which binds to EPPIN, a protein on the surface of human sperm, resulting in the loss of sperm motility. They are in the process of developing an oral formulation of the drug and completing toxicology testing in preparation for an IND application.

Founders: Michael G. O’Rand, Jeffrey A. Handler, Katherine G. Hamil

Ercole Biotech, Inc.

Ercole developed oligonucleotide-based RNA therapeutics that directed alternative splicing of mRNA. These splice-switching drugs represent a new class of drug with the potential to modify gene-encoded proteins and their production. Ercole Biotech was acquired by AVI BioPharma in 2008 and AVI BioPharma changed its name to Sarepta Therapeutics in 2012.

G1 Therapeutics

G1 Therapeutics is a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company developing small-molecule therapeutic agents to protect patient bone marrow and the immune system from chemotherapy-induced damage.

GeneCentric Therapeutics

GeneCentric Therapeutics’ proprietary platform utilizes tumor genomic information to enable oncologists and their patients to make informed decisions through clinical trial design, prediction of drug response, drug development target selection and improved therapeutic results.

Glycan Therapeutics

Glycan Therapeutics possesses a unique patented technology to synthesize heparin and heparan sulfate oligosaccharides for medical uses. The company is developing new drug therapies based on this novel synthetic carbohydrate technology platform. The platform technology can be used to synthesize an anticoagulant drug, like synthetic heparin, as well as design heparin-like oligosaccharides for research and development for other medical applications. They are the leader in the development of enzymatically synthesized sulfated oligosaccharides for a variety of indications.

Founder: Jian Liu, Yongmei Xu

Hibernaid, Inc.

Hibernaid, Inc. is a pharmaceutical company dedicated to development of medications to treat acute brain injury and other ischemia-reperfusion injuries. Company co-founder Dr. Lawrence Katz studies hypothermia mechanisms and their ability to improve outcomes for critical patients, and the company’s current lead induces clinically-relevant hypothermia to increase survival and prevent damage in acute critical care conditions. Hibernaid’s goal is to find therapeutic agents that can be administered to patients more broadly, quickly and easily with fewer side effects.

IMMvention Therapeutix

IMMvention Therapeutix, based in Durham, NC, is focused on improving the lives of patients with auto-inflammatory diseases of huge unmet needs (such as Osteoarthritis, Gout, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, Alzheimer’s etc.). The company is discovering and developing first-in-class novel disease modifying therapies that inhibit the inflammation caused by activation of inflammasomes. The Company’s differentiation is its novel product pipeline powered by the intellectual capital of its team and a platform to discover small molecule inhibitors of multiple inflammasome receptors. The current 1st generation single receptor inflammasome inhibition approaches of other companies (such as Novartis, Genentech, Nodthera, Inflazome etc.) are expected to be ineffective/suboptimal against diseases where multiple inflammasomes are activated. The Company’s initial target diseases are rare auto-inflammatory diseases (e.g. Still’s Disease, affecting adults and children with systemic arthritis) and COVID-19 associated hyper-inflammation that leads to acute respiratory distress syndrome and mortalities. The Company was co-founded in 2017 by pioneering scientists in the fields of immunology and innate immunity from the School of Medicine and Eshelman School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. This includes, Dr. Jenny Ting who is preeminent scientific leader in fields of immunology, innate immunity and inflammasomes. IMMvention has been funded to date by North Carolina Biotechnology Center, NIH SBIR grants/contracts, and Pharma collaborations. The company is raising its first venture funding to progress its novel small molecule preclinical therapeutics pipeline to the clinic for treating rare auto-inflammatory diseases.

Founders: Anil Goyal, Eric Bachelder, Kristy Ainslie, Jenny Ting

Impulsonic, Inc.

Impulsonic uses high-performance computer graphics techniques and the latest research in acoustics simulation to develop high-performance and accurate acoustics-simulation algorithms for game and virtual reality applications, architects, acoustics consultants, and government and national defense applications. Impulsonic was acquired by Valve Corporation in 2017.

Inhalon Biopharma

Inhalon Biopharma is a clinical-stage immunotherapy company with an inhaled muco-trapping antibody platform to prevent and treat acute respiratory infections. The platform enables inhaled antibodies to trap pathogens in airway mucus, thereby preventing the spread of infection. Trapped pathogens are purged from the respiratory tract through normal mucus clearance, adding another mechanism of action for the already potent antibodies. Inhaled administration of antibodies promises to be easier and more effective than traditional routes of administration. Inhalon completed a Phase 1 study of IN-006, an inhaled antibody for treating COVID-19, and is working with Celltrion, Inc., to initiate a Phase 3 study of an antibody cocktail that includes IN-006. Inhalon is also advancing preclinical development of its RSV, MPV, PIV and influenza programs.

Founder: Sam Lai

InnerOptic Technology, Inc.

InnerOptic Technology develops 3D navigation and guidance software for use in minimally invasive image-guided surgical procedures.

Inspire Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Inspire Pharmaceuticals focused on researching, developing, and commercializing prescription pharmaceutical products for ophthalmic and pulmonary diseases. Inspire Pharmaceuticals was acquired by Merck & Co. in 2011.

KindHeart, Inc.

KindHeart is a medical-simulation company specializing in surgery simulation systems that use real animal tissue, fully animated surgical simulators.

KXTbio, Inc.

KXTbio is a biotechnology company focusing on the development and application of reagents, assays and drug screening platforms for the study of G proteins and GTPases with the goal of developing small molecule therapeutics targeting protein-protein interactions.

Liquidia Technologies

Liquidia Technologies develops precision-engineered drug particles that have the potential to dramatically improve the performance of medicines. The ability to modify nanoparticle attributes allows Liquidia to develop more optimized safe and effective vaccines and therapies for a wide variety of diseases.

LiRA

LiRA is a social venture developing lip-reading technology that employs advancements in computer vision, machine learning, and natural language processing to help voiceless individuals communicate.

Founders: Alison Schaefer, Andrew Prince, Dina Yamaleyeva, Andres Tello, Nga Nguyen

Meryx, Inc.

Meryx is a biotechnology company developing inhibitors of Mer Receptor Tyrosine Kinase for the treatment of hematologic and solid tumors including leukemia, lung cancer and melanoma.

Mission3, Inc.

Mission3 is an educational non-profit company distributing an educational software application that tracks medical resident behaviors and skills linked to the ACGME milestones.

Morphormics

Morphormics developed and delivered medical imaging software systems to dramatically increase efficiency and success rate in image-guided medical treatment planning, intervention, and diagnosis. Proprietary image analysis methods were developed that recognized and extracted anatomical structures from 3D and 2D medical images. Morphormics was acquired by Accuray in 2012.

New Paradigm Biosciences

New Paradigm Biosciences uses a proprietary humanized mouse platform to develop and test therapeutics. This platform allows the study of human specific pathways and the immune system that other in vivo model systems cannot achieve.

Novan, Inc.

Novan, Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on leveraging nitric oxide’s natural antiviral and immunomodulatory mechanisms of action to treat dermatological and oncovirus-mediated diseases.

OncoTrap

OncoTrap is based on identifying drug target binding molecules using in vitro protein selection and protein engineering. The company uses affinity molecules to trap the immunosuppressive signals in the microenvironment of diseased tissues to treat solid tumors and autoimmune diseases. The product pipeline includes OT-1, a therapy that targets the chemokine protein CXCL12 to treat pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma; OT-2, which targets programmed cell death protein 1 (PD1) in pancreatic cancers; OT-3, which traps a cytokine in tumor sites; and OT-4, a polymer-based self-assembly system that is designed to deliver siRNA against Kras mutant (G12D) to cancer cells.

Founder: Rihe Liu, Leaf Huang

Oriel Therapeutics, Inc.

Oriel Therapeutics develops technology for drug delivery to the lungs to better treat respiratory and pulmonary disease. As of 2010, Oriel Therapeutics was acquired by Sandoz.

Parion Sciences

Parion Sciences develops therapies to treat defects of the innate mucosal defense system in respiratory and ocular diseases.

Path BioAnalytics

Path BioAnalytics (PBA) is a precision medicine company dedicated to the advancement of next-generation treatments for individuals living with respiratory disease. PBA couples a personalized 3D cell culture system with extensive in-house clinical datasets from a broad cross-section of individuals to provide an innovative platform for drug development. Their organoid technology provides a miniature model of the airways that is unique to the person who provided the cells to grow the organoid. They are composed of differentiated epithelial cells, mimicking the polarization, epithelial structure, and composition of the airways. PBA is utilizing its technology to advance internal and external drug programs for a range of diseases. The company’s internal development programs are focused on cystic fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pulmonary fibrosis. PBA’s patient-centric, precision medicine approach to drug development allows the company to de-risk R&D decisions, improve the efficiency of clinical testing, and ultimately produce more effective medications for targeted patient populations.

Founder: John Mellnik

PharmatrophiX

PharmatrophiX is focused on developing small molecule drugs targeting neurotrophin receptors for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders.

PhoenixSongs Biologicals

PhoenixSongs is a global life science company dedicated to developing and providing novel stem cell-derived model systems for research and drug discovery. Stem cell sources include iPS cells and stem cells isolated from donor tissues such as liver, brain, biliary tree and umbilical cords.

Premirr Plastics

Using a combination of proprietary chemistry and equipment, Premirr Plastics has developed a new cleantech system to chemically breakdown PET into a reusable starting material (monomers) for new PET products. Unlike traditional recycling methods that melt the plastic into pellets, Premirr’s system allows for PET plastic waste to be recycled an unlimited amount of times and to its original shape.

Founder: Matthew Parrott, Mark McCreery

Pulvinar Neuro

Pulvinar Neuro provides cutting-edge neurotechnology to brain researchers. The company develops and markets a portable device for non-invasive brain stimulation research. Their solution uses transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) for brain stimulation.

Founder: Flavio Frohlich

Qualyst Transporter Solutions

Qualyst Transporter Solutions was a biotechnology company providing hepatic drug transporter models, products and contract research services for accelerating the process of screening drug candidates. Qualyst Transporter Solutions was acquired by BioIVT in 2017.

RainBIO

RainBio is the only ocular gene therapy pioneer focused on blindness in the cornea. Our adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector gene therapy can directly correct cornea cellular function to maintain or restore vision in patients at risk of blindness from a number of diseases. Our groundbreaking first-in-class lead program for corneal clouding in Mucopolysaccharidosis type 1 (MPS1) patients who have vision loss from this rare genetic disease opens up a new field in ocular gene therapy.

Founders: Matt Hirsch and Brian Gilger

RedBud Labs

Redbud Labs manufactures microfluidic components for life science industry. Redbud’s products improve the performance of microfluidic consumables in research, drug discovery, and diagnostics. The core technology is the patented Redbud Posts™, which enable their cartridge-ready components to deliver enhanced microfluidic performance. Redbud PostsTM are a type of artificial cilia. These microscopic structures, patterned on silicone film, move in the presence of magnetic fields. Redbud PostsTM induce microscale agitation that defeat diffusion kinetics and laminar flow, enabling faster, more sensitive assays.

Founders: Ricky Spero, Rich Superfine, Russ Taylor

Renaissance Cell Technologies

Renaissance Cell Technologies was developing a liver progenitor cell therapy for treatment of liver failure. The company name was changed to Incara Pharmaceuticals and was later sold to Vesta Therapeutics.

Renovion, Inc.

Renovion is a pre-clinical stage pharmaceutical company with a therapy for chronic inflammatory airway diseases. The company is currently developing Arina-1 as the first FDA-approved therapy for patients who have received a lung transplant and expanding approval into other indications, including CF, non-cf bronchiectasis, PCD and other diseases.

Founder: Carolyn Durham

Ribometrix

Ribometrix has developed a proprietary platform for discovering and characterizing the interactions of small molecule drugs that target RNA.

Sandbar Oyster Company

Sandbar developed a novel, biodegradable material – Oyster Catcher™ – that promotes oyster growth and restores/creates estuarine habitats. Sandbar is also bringing innovation and core sustainability to oyster aquaculture by offering forms of Oyster Catcher™ and know-how to produce large quantities of seed oysters derived from the natural spawning of wild oysters. The offspring of these genetically diverse parents possess traits favorable for survival and growth across a wide range of environmental conditions. Forms of Oyster Catcher™ optimized for spat collection can be used in hatcheries or appropriate natural environments as a biodegradable oyster shell substitute.

Founder: Niels Lindquist

Sapere Bio

Sapere Bio is developing a diagnostic test for determining a patient’s “molecular age” that will improve risk assessment and patient outcomes. The company integrates their proprietary sample collection methods, reproducible and precise measurement of senescense biomarkers and development of algorithms to predict adverse health outcomes and guide clinical care. AKI-Sapere is the first in a series of blood tests being developed to stratify patients by risk of devastating adverse events following cardiac procedures.

Founders: Norman Sharpless, Natalia Mitin

Sonovascular

SonoVascular is developing a thrombolysis device for the treatment of blood clots related to deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism and peripheral arterial occlusions. The device utilizes an ultrasound transducer that is small enough to be introduced to the blood vessel via a catheter and aims ultrasound directly ahead, which makes it extremely precise. The systems helps dissolve clots and creates larger holes in the clot mass that allow blood borne anti-clotting drugs to penetrate deep into the clot and further break it down.

Founders: Daniel Estay, Xiaoning Jiang

SOVE

SOVE is developing an innovative orthodontic system to solve the problems frequently encountered with esthetic orthodontic systems. Current invisible orthodontic systems are uncomfortable, often require removal of healthy enamel to slenderize teeth, have visible components on the front of the teeth and do not result in ideal tooth position. The company’s 2Insight system solves these challenges with a unique, two-stage process: “archwire first, aligner second,” resulting in a faster, more precise, hygienic, minimally invasive, 100 percent esthetic orthodontic treatment. In addition to improving treatment for existing candidates, 2Insight makes it possible to use an invisible orthodontic appliance on segments of the population that previously were not candidates for invisible braces.

Founders: Christina Jackson, Ching-Chang Ko

StrideBio

StrideBio, Inc. is a gene therapy company focused on creating and developing novel adeno-associated viral (AAV) vector technologies. Our STRucture Inspired DEsign approach holds the potential to generate unique AAV capsids capable of overcoming the challenges of pre-existing neutralizing antibodies in patients. This powerful new approach has broad application, enabling gene addition, gene silencing, and gene editing modalities for rare diseases.

Triangle Biotechnology

Triangle Biotechnology develops high-throughput, low-cost, user-friendly sonication workflows for biological sample preparation for applications including next-generation sequencing, tissue processing, and cell lysis. Their patented RapidShear® reagents significantly improve the efficiency of sonication-based lysis of biological samples and reduce the energy required for high-quality sample processing. By combining RapidShear® technology with low-cost sonication platforms and performing rigorous process optimization, Triangle Biotechnology develops workflows that significantly increase sample-to-sample consistency and decrease overall processing time.

Founders: Samantha Pattenden, Paul Dayton, Joe McMahon

Viamet Pharmaceuticals

Viamet Pharmaceuticals discovered and developed small molecule compounds that targeted metalloenzymes, with applications in fungal infection, oncology, and certain orphan diseases. Viamet Pharmaceuticals was acquired by NovaQuest Capital Management in 2018. Viamet Pharmaceuticals Holdings holds assets not acquired by NovaQuest Capital Management.

XinNano Materials, Inc.

XinNano Materials, a joint venture of Xintek, Inc. and TECO Nanotech Col, Ltd., is a world leader in producing high quality carbon nanotubes for field emission, thermal and electrical conducting applications. XinNano Materials has also developed carbon nanotube ink that can be easily applied to substrates to produce transparent conducting film and anti-static film used for touch panel, flexible display and EMI shielding applications.

XinRay Systems

XinRay Systems is a joint venture between Siemens Medical Solutions and Xintek that develops and manufactures distributed x-ray sources for a broad range of applications including diagnostic medical imaging, homeland security, and industrial inspection.

Xintek, Inc.

Xintek develops nanomaterial-based field emission technologies and products for a broad range of industries such as x-ray imaging, information display, telecommunication, aerospace and oil detection. Xintek’s major products include: carbon nanotube (CNT)-based field emission electron source, field emission grade CNT material, field emission x-ray source and CNT AFM probes.

ZeroPoint Dynamics

ZeroPoint Dynamics develops computer and network security products. Their cybersecurity products rapidly analyze e-mail, documents, and web content to prevent data breaches and loss.