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BioElectronics Corporation is a Frederick, MD-based company in the Healthcare, Pharmaceuticals, and Biotech sector.
ReCode Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company developing precision medicines for pulmonary diseases with significant unmet medical need.
MicuRx mission is to discover and develop safer and more convenient antibiotics to combat drug-resistant bacterial infections. Multi-drug resistant (MDR) infections represent a major global threat to the public health, routinely forcing the use of antibiotics with high incidence of adverse effects. To combat resistant infections, physicians may increase dosing of antibiotics, or resort to less safe agents, pushing the safety envelope. Thus, healthcare providers and regulatory agencies increasingly face a difficult choice of balancing the risk of infection against unacceptably high adverse event rates from an effective but relatively toxic antibiotic. For example, in July 2016, FDA imposed a new labeling warning on the toxicity of fluoroquinolones, further restricting the use of this essential class, exemplified by anti-pseudomonal agent ciprofloxacin. Anti-MRSA agent linezolid (Zyvox®) is often used beyond its approved 14-day therapy, resulting in several myelosuppression-associated adverse effects listed in the black box warning for this important drug. MicuRx is addressing the critical need for effective but safer therapeutics by designing novel new compounds with reduced toxicity and adverse events while maintaining excellent clinical efficacy.
Ambys Medicines is a biotechnology company focused on discovering and developing regenerative and restorative therapies for people with advanced liver disease. Founded by world-renowned experts in liver disease and regenerative medicine, Ambys is pioneering the application of novel modalities including cell and gene therapy, and gain-of-function drug therapy, to meet the urgent need for treatments that have the potential to restore liver function and prevent the progression to liver failure across multiple liver diseases that are untreatable or poorly treated today. Ambys was launched in 2018 by Third Rock Ventures and Takeda Pharmaceuticals with $140M in starting capital and is headquartered in South San Francisco, Calif.
Kezar co-founder Christopher Kirk, Ph.D. began his work on the unique function of the immunoproteasome at Proteolix in 2005, while working on the compound that would become the successful multiple myeloma drug KYPROLIS™ (carfilzomib). As VP of Research at Onyx Pharmaceuticals, which acquired Proteolix in 2009, Christopher led the efforts to develop the first selective inhibitors of the immunoproteasome and designed multiple studies demonstrating their profound immunomodulatory effects. In parallel with this work, Christopher and Kezar co-founder Jack Taunton, Ph.D. collaborated on several research projects involving protein secretion. This collaboration inspired a belief in the strong synergies between protein degradation and protein secretion, two fertile areas for drug discovery with platform potential. In 2014, Christopher and Kezar co-founder John Fowler began developing the business plan for Kezar, acting on a longstanding desire to work together and build a world-class company. In 2015, John and Christopher raised $23M and negotiated a worldwide, exclusive license agreement with Amgen for the Onyx immunoproteasome inhibitor patent estate. Now underway, John and Christopher are excited to leverage their complementary skill sets to build Kezar into a leader in small molecule drug development.