Commercialization
Accelerator Corporation, founded in 2003, is a first-of-its-kind collaboration between the life science leaders--Amgen Ventures, ARCH Venture Partners, MPM Capital, OVP Venture Partners, Versant Ventures, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (a laboratory construction company), and the Institute for Systems Biology. It is a privately held biotechnology company that specializes in the creation of early-stage companies arising from the institute and elsewhere. Accelerator is located in Seattle approximately ten minutes from ISB.
Accelerator Corporation's mission is to build the next generation of life-enhancing biotechnology companies by providing the resources critical to accelerating the development of nascent leading-edge biotechnologies. Accelerator already has more than $20 million in committed capital from the participating top-tier venture capital firms and its CEO has experience in biotechnology start-ups and management. This unprecedented partnership is devoted to identifying, financing, and developing cutting-edge companies focused on systems biology and related fields. Some of these opportunities are emerging from ISB, but many will originate from biotechnology centers.
ISB provides state-of-the-art facilities, access to the scientific environment at the institute, and world-class scientific and technical expertise for the new companies. For these services the institute receives founders´ equity in the new companies, which over time will contribute to its endowment.
The Accelerator, although still in its infancy, appears to be an enormous success: more than 200 business plans have been submitted from all of the biotechnology centers in the United States such as Boston, San Diego, San Francisco, and Bethesda, as well as from Canada, Europe, and Asia. To date, Accelerator has launched several companies, and a number of other companies are currently under consideration.
Spin-off Companies
Institute faculty members have been founders or cofounders of more than 15 companies over the past two decades. Since the ISB was founded, four new companies have emerged -- either as a result of new technologies or strategies from the Institute, or from significant participation of one or more of the Institute's faculty.
Cytopeia was founded by faculty member Ger van den Engh as a spin-off company from the ISB. The company, which is located in Seattle, produces a compact high-speed cell sorter. The cell sorter, or cytometer, uses cell analysis techniques developed by Dr. van den Engh while at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory and the University of Washington. The high speed cell sorting technology is used on many commercial cell sorters, as well as on Cytopeia's own Influx® cell sorter. Cytopeia specializes in custom-built cell sorters used for a wide range of applications including good manufacturing practices (GMP) sorting for clinical research, and in situ analysis of marine organisms.
Based on discoveries of founder Dr. Jeffrey Ravetch, MacroGenics is
identifying new targets for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory
diseases. In collaboration with cofounders Dr. Leroy Hood, Dr. Alan
Aderem, and Dr. Ruedi Aebersold, MacroGenics uses genomics, proteomics,
and immunology to develop improved antibody therapeutics. MacroGenics
has research facilities in Rockville, MD, and Seattle, WA. In
addition to developing its own therapeutic products, the company intends
to enter into partnerships with other biotechnology and pharmaceutical
companies using its licensed technologies to screen for more effective
antibody therapies.
Cellerant Therapeutics Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company co-founded by Dr. Leroy Hood and located in Palo Alto California. The company is developing and commercializing the use of hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cell-based therapies for the treatment of a variety of cancers such as metastatic breast cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and multiple myeloma and autoimmune diseases such as juvenile diabetes, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.
NanoStringTM Technologies spun out of the ISB in 2003 with technology developed in the Hood lab. The company is developing a patent-pending nanotechnology-based platform for high speed, completely automated, robust, highly multiplexed, single molecule identification and digital quantification. This cutting edge approach has the potential to become a biological operating system onto which any biomolecular analysis application can be developed. The system uniquely barcodes each individual target molecule, scans it, and delivers a literal inventory of single molecules in the biological sample. Once fully developed, this technology will be a truly broad-based platform with numerous applications in the life sciences and other industries. Potential applications include gene expression analysis, genotyping, proteomics, clinical diagnostics and predictive, preventive, and personalized medicine.
Homestead Clinical Corporation
Homestead Clinical Corporation was founded to commercialize a suite of technologies developed at the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) that have broad utility in the development of novel diagnostic , prognostic, and theranostic tools. Homestead will utilize proprietary technologies, licensed from the ISB, to develop diagnostic /prognostic/theranostic tools, designed to facilitate early intervention in a variety of diseases and to make accurate predictions as to appropriate courses of treatment. Leveraging these technologies in combination represents a significant step toward understanding disease onset and progression.
Early diagnosis would have a significant impact on survival in diseases such as cancer but the tools are not yet available to make that possible today. Homestead´s goal is to change that and to help facilitate a paradigm shift that will enable the new field of predictive and preventive medicine.
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