ADS Biotechnology is working to commercialize a product that would treat a serious medical condition, capillary leak syndrome, which endangers patients with accident or battlefield injuries, including traumatic brain injury and significant burns.

ADS Biotechnology Ltd. is a biomedical spin-off company of the University of Toledo. It was founded in January 2008 by three UT scientists to develop a new blood volume-expansion product for the treatment of capillary leak syndrome (CLS).

“It’s been a long journey,” said Mary Shapiro, chief financial officer of ADS, about the process that began 10 years ago.

In 1998, her husband Joe Shapiro and his colleague Raghed Assalynd encountered a young patient with capillary leak syndrome and became frustrated when there wasn’t much that they could do to help her.

Capillary leakage causes dangerously low blood pressure and volume when the blood leaks into surrounding tissue. It causes a decreased flow of blood to organs, including the brain, lungs and kidneys. Irreversible organ damage or death frequently occurs as a result.

They approached another colleague, David Digman, about working to find a way to help patients with CLS.

The three professors at UT’s College of Medicine developed a method to create pegylated albumin, a blood-volume expander they call PEG-Alb, for the treatment of capillary leakage. The pegylated albumin creates larger blood molecules to prevent them from leaking into surrounding tissue.

PEG Alb is the only product of its kind, according to the scientists at ADS. It will safely and effectively treat and prevent capillary leakage by maintaining blood pressure when it is administered intravenously.

After 10 years of researching and developing the product, the inventors licensed the technology through UT’s Technology Transfer office in January 2008.

Daniel Kory, associate vice president for Technology Transfer at UT, connected the people forming ADS with the staff at Rocket Ventures of the Regional Growth Partnership during the licensing process.

“The curve has accelerated now after 10 years with the support of Tech Transfer at UT,” said Greg Knudson, vice president of Rocket Ventures at RGP.

“When we met with the people at Rocket Ventures, they said, ‘We can do this’ and showed us how they could help,” Mary Shapiro said.

“We put together a virtual team of people to work with ADS,” Knudson said.

Joanne Abbot, a business development manager for Rocket Ventures, recruited John Klotz, an entrepreneur in residence on staff. Klotz helped ADS to develop a business plan, marketing strategy and financial infrastructure for the company.

Todd Davies, another business development manager for Rocket Ventures, joined the team. Davies uses his ability to make the science understandable to businesspeople and provide proof that the product is effective.

Julie Myers, marketing manager for Rocket Ventures, designed the logo for ADS and is helping to market the business and its product.

“Everyone brings unique perspectives and active minds to the process,” Shapiro said.

The three inventors asked Klotz to serve as CEO of ADS, so he is serving in that capacity on an interim basis. Davies is serving as chief science officer and Abbott as director of business development to help the firm market its product.

All three are compensated by Rocket Ventures while remaining on its staff as part of the service RGP provides to its clients, said RGP President and CEO Steve Weathers.

ADS is beginning the FDA’s regulatory process in order to conduct preclinical and clinical trials, said Shapiro. The company also seeks additional funding for the development of the product.

Rocket Ventures awarded an Ignite Grant of $50,000 to ADS in spring 2008. The fund recently made its first investment of $250,000 in ADS.

Shapiro said that ADS has submitted applications for grants to obtain funding from the U.S. Department of Defense, National Institute of Health and the Cleveland Clinic.

ADS officials recently visited the Ohio Tech Angels Fund in Columbus about funding and will make a formal presentation to its screening committee July 21.

Shapiro said they are forming an alliance with Baxter Healthcare, one of the major distributors and producers of albumin.

“Our ultimate goal is to create a cluster of bioscience companies here and ADS is just part of it,” Shapiro said.

“Rocket Ventures was new, and ADS was one of its first clients,” Davies said. “We built a model to work with other clients based on our experience with ADS.”

Rocket Ventures is working with 55 new technology companies in Northwest Ohio, according to Knudson. It is funded by the Third Frontier Program of the Ohio Department of Development (ODOD).

Third Frontier provided $15 million to fund Rocket Ventures which raised another $7.5 million from a local group of 19 private investors for the required matching funds.

Third Frontier has invested $70 million in Northwest Ohio, including funds for Rocket Ventures and the Wright Center for PVIC at UT.

Officials from ODOD visited Toledo July 15 to discuss the amount of Frontier funds that will be available to technology companies in fiscal year 2010. The program has awarded about $1 billion in the first eight years of the 10-year program with $1.6 billion in total funding.

For a list of requests for proposals, visit www.thirdfrontier.com.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Entrepreneurs, Toledo Business Link.
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