This summer, Spin Up — IURTC’s business accelerator focused on biotech, engineering, health care, life science and medical device technology — surpassed the $2 million mark in funds raised.
Along the way to its three-year anniversary in July, the program created 24 new companies, 30 new entrepreneurs among Indiana University faculty — including seven women — and in mid-2014 saw five of those companies win Phase I Small Business Technology Transfer grants from the National Institutes of Health. To date, seven Spin Up companies have won nearly $2.34 million in federal grants, matching grants, national awards and venture competition prize money. Such awards allow these companies to explore potential solutions to some of medicine’s most difficult challenges:
- Anagin (2013), founded by Dr. Anantha Shekhar and Yvonne Lai to develop a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder that avoids harmful side effects, $767,706.
- Emphymab Biotech (2011), directed by Brian Johnstone, Dr. Irina Petrache and Matthias Clauss to treat emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, $436,473.
- YC Bioelectric (2012), founded by Hiroki Yokota and Stanley Yung-Ping Chien to develop a faster, more accurate and less costly way to perform the Western blot lab technique, which is used to detect and analyze protein samples, $357,787.
- Arrhythmotech (2012), co-founded by Dr. Peng-Sheng Chen and Shein-Fong Lin to develop a non-invasive technology to monitor both sympathetic nerve activity and electrocardiogram signals, $262,634.
- Refer2Input (2013), founded by Ken Yoshida to monitor bioelectric signals from various areas of the body in a single, universal unit, $260,581.
- EmotEd LLC (2012), founded by Dawn Neumann to develop a therapeutic video game to treat emotional deficits stemming from traumatic brain injury, $244,575.
- Sophia Therapeutics (2011), co-founded by Rajesh Khanna to treat neuropathic pain, $10,000.
Last week, Spin Up director Joe Trebley (left) appeared on Inside Indiana Business with Gerry Dick with Anagin’s Shekhar to discuss Spin Up’s latest successes. Spin Up associate Polina Feldman (right) assists Trebley in running the program’s day-to-day activities.
To learn more about Spin Up’s origins, how it operates and its future plans, please read here.
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