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The grant is from the state's Emerging Technology Fund,
created in 2005 to encourage the development and
commercialization of new technologies and recruit research
talent to the state. The Austin Chamber of Commerce and the
Central Texas Regional Center of Innovation and
Commercialization, which helps administer the Emerging
Technology Fund, announced the grant today (November 17).
"The ETF grant is making a significant investment in the
future of Texas and the country by supporting NanoMedical
Systems," said Randy Goodall, president and CEO of the
company. "Our technology platform offers reliable drug
dosing tailored to the individual patient's needs and
therefore has the potential to engender a revolutionary
transformation in medicine."
Goodall said the
company represents an important milestone in Texas'
long-term effort to forge alliances among the state
government, higher education and the private sector in order
to diversify the state's economy through advanced
technology.
"NanoMedical
Systems is a clear example of the economic benefits of the
synergies of the private and public sectors, including the
advanced research at our major universities and health
science centers," Goodall said.
"Our company is a result of the convergence in Texas of the
fields of semiconductors, micro- and nano-electromechanical
systems, nano-materials and biotechnology. Our work is at
the center of all these exciting developments, and we are
grateful to the state for its role in helping us contribute
to the new economy of Texas."
NanoMedical
Systems leases incubator space at the Austin-based computer
chip consortium SEMATECH and has ties to faculty and
research labs at three institutions in the University of
Texas System. The company's basic technology was developed
by Mauro Ferrari, a co-founder of the company who holds
faculty positions at the University of Texas Health Science
Center at Houston, UT M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in
Houston, UT Austin, and Rice University. Texas A&M
University and its Texas Institute for Preclinical Studies
will be involved in the company's work next year.
Each small silicon chip through which the company's device
will deliver medication into the bloodstream has 100,000
nanochannels, each precisely dimensioned from engineered
materials to a size near that of a drug molecule. Early
fabrication of the chips is being carried out at the
Advanced Technology Development Facility (ATDF), the
semiconductor R&D plant at the SEMATECH site, now owned and
operated by SVTC Technologies LLC.
"This is a dream situation," Ferrari said. "We have an
opportunity to take decisive strides against cancer, working
all together as a team: the company, the State of Texas, our
university laboratory, and our collaborating partners at
several Texas institutions. University laboratories alone
cannot bring medical innovations into the clinic, they need
companies that will turn basic discoveries into new medical
treatments and clinical devices.
"That is why it is such a privilege to ‘fly in formation'
with NMS: We can make a real difference in patient care. I
am confident that the work we are doing will have benefits
beyond cancer, with applications to cardiovascular and
infectious diseases, among others. We will continue to
explore new approaches in civilian medicine, but also in
space and military medicine, with the support of the
sponsors of our university laboratory research: NASA, the
Department of Defense and the National Institutes of
Health."
The device being developed by NanoMedical Systems, called a
Personalized Molecular Drug-delivery System, or PMDS, is a
small capsule designed to be implanted just under the skin
in a simple office procedure. The capsule will be able to
hold enough medication for weeks or months of controlled
release. As development continues the capsule will be made
even smaller because it will contain mostly the active
pharmaceutical agent and almost none of the bulk solution in
which an injectable drug is usually dissolved.
NanoMedical
Systems is focusing on an anti-cancer drug that is used in
long-term therapy for its first commercially viable product.
Its R&D activities over the next year will include further
design and testing of the device's chip and capsule, animal
studies, and applications with the federal Food and Drug
Administration. Optimizing additional drugs for controlled
release in even smaller, smarter capsules will proceed in
parallel with pharmaceutical partners.
For its lab and assembly operations, the company will begin
leasing cleanroom space from Minco Technology Labs in North
Austin.
In addition to the grant announced this week, NanoMedical
Systems has benefited from earlier funding by the Emerging
Technology Fund. The fund provided a $5 million grant to
ATDF for nanofrabrication equipment, and a $2.5 million
grant in 2006 was part of a financial package at the UT
Health Science Center at Houston providing personnel and
research start-up funds that were instrumental in recruiting
Ferrari to Texas from Ohio State University. Ferrari, one of
the founders of the field of biomedical nanotechnology, is
president of the Alliance for NanoHealth, a collaborative
venture involving eight Houston-area research institutions.
About NanoMedical Systems Inc.
NanoMedical
Systems (NMS) is a startup company, which will commercialize
the patented research of Dr. Mauro Ferrari at the University
of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, a sponsored
research site and a source of licensed IP for NMS. The era
of personalized medicine will require products for the
individual that depend on many sophisticated technologies.
NMS is one of the world’s first truly convergent technology
companies, integrating semiconductor, biotechnology,
MEMS/NEMS, nano-materials, and pharmaceutical sciences in
its products. Co-founder and CEO, Dr. Randy Goodall has
brought together a multi-disciplinary senior product
development team to rapidly design, prototype, and qualify
the first product for clinical studies. Dr. Goodall was
previously a director at the R&D consortium Sematech in
Austin, Texas. NMS maintains offices on that site, using the
on-site facilities of ATDF, owned and operated by SVTC
Technologies LLC, for leading-edge nanofabrication.
For more information, please click here
Contacts:
Randy Goodall
president and CEO
NanoMedical
Systems Inc.
(512) 356-3006
RGoodall@NanoMedSys.com |
