The Massachusetts Life Sciences Centre, a quasi-public agency of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts tasked with implementing the Massachusetts Life Sciences Act, a 10-year, $1 billion initiative, has awarded $3.75 million in loans to five early-stage life sciences companies.
The awardees are companies whose commercial prospects, scientific innovation, and potential for development of new therapies and devices for the life sciences are consistent with the Centre’s mission and vision.
The development will result in new medical device jobs.
“We aim to help translate this innovation into creating new jobs in Massachusetts and new life-saving technologies,” said Dr. Harvey Lodish, Chair of the Center’s Scientific Advisory Board, Member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and Professor of Biology and Professor of Bioengineering at MIT.
The Centre’s Accelerator Programme provides loans of up to $750,000 to early-stage companies engaged in life sciences research and development, commercialisation and manufacturing. It supports and “de-risks” early-stage companies by providing loans that will match other sources of capital. By leveraging other sources of capital, the Accelerator Programme provides support to companies at the most critical stages of their development cycle, enabling them to conduct vital research and proof-of-concept studies and attract subsequent investment.
The first two rounds of the programnme took place in 2009 and 2010 and collectively funded 10 companies.
Applicants for the Accelerator Programme are generally early-stage life sciences companies with a high-potential for technology commercialisation, rapid growth, and downstream private equity financing. The loans are designed to address the need for capital investment associated with the long life sciences R&D cycle and the high cost of translating research into a commercially viable product.
The five companies that were authorised to receive loans of $750,000 through the Accelerator Programme are:
AesRx (Newton) – a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of sickle cell disease and other orphan drugs. Aes-103 is a novel, orally bioavailable, small molecule (Da 126) therapeutic for the treatment of SCD. Aes-103 is in late pre-clinical development and will be developed through the end of the first three human clinical trials in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
ECI Biotech (Worcester) – a developer and manufacturer of affordable and rapid, patented ExpressDetect diagnostic sensors that can be incorporated into any consumer product or medical device. The platform technology was created through research and development funding from Johnson and Johnson Ethicon and the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant programme from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Grove Instruments (Worcester) – is developing a completely painless, noninvasive technology that accurately measures blood sugar at the point of care. Grove’s noninvasive glucometer removes all the barriers to optimal self monitoring of blood glucose.
MoMelan Technologies (Cambridge) – is a therapeutic medical device company developing the ‘Epidermal Expansion System,’ a point-of-care, compact desktop medical device which will provide dermatologists and wound care specialists with the first viable approach to perform standardised epidermal skin grafting in under one hour in a simple, yet effective method with high reliability and repeatability.
Myomo (Cambridge) – is focused on helping people move again after a neuro-muscular impairment. Starting with robotic technology licensed from MIT, the company has partnered with leading universities and medical professionals to develop a comprehensive rehabilitation system combining robotics, software and specialised treatment protocols. Each component can be employed on its own; however the combined system provides concentric circles of closed loop feedback that promotes patient recovery, facilitates living independently and optimises healthcare resources.
