Health sciences companies grow with Missouri Innovation Center assistance

Equinosis
Principals: Kevin G. Keegan, associate professor of equine surgery at the University of Missouri-Columbia; Missouri Innovation Center; Incubation Factory, St. Louis
Current status: Prototype. Filed for preliminary patents. Currently fund-raising. Product launch planned for December 2007.
Profile:
Equinosis’s Lameness Locator system makes it possible for a veterinarian to evaluate the source and severity of an uneven gait in a horse without requiring a horse-size treadmill. The locator, developed by Kevin Keegan at MU, is no larger than a laptop computer.
Irregular gait, or lameness, is one of the most common causes for an owner to seek veterinary services for a horse. The locator is non-invasive and will complete the diagnosis in about 10 minutes.
Equinosis needs to raise about $300,000 to get started. One of the challenges in this project is to assemble a management team. The Missouri Innovation Center is estimating total annual sales around $25 million starting the fifth operating year.

VesicaMed
Principals: IsoTherapeutics Group in Angleton, Texas; Missouri Innovation Center
Current status: Business plan complete. Currently in dialogue with investors to raise funds for phase one trials. Needs FDA approval for radioisotope and proof of concept for targeting technique.
Profile:
Bladder cancer is the fourth-most-common cancer in men and eighth-most-common cancer in women. An estimated 45,000 new cases are diagnosed every year in the United States. The most common treatment for bladder cancer is surgery, often in combination with chemotherapy and radiation therapy. VesicaMed wants to eliminate invasive surgery by using radioisotopes delivered directly to the bladder with a targeted delivery molecule.
VesicaMed has chosen a widely used delivery molecule, but the primary radioisotope the investigators chose will need FDA approval before VesicaMed can go to market. The radioisotope has shown promising results in animal models.
IsoThearpeutics Group’s chief scientific officer, Jaime (Jim) Simón, earned his doctorate at MU in 1980. His ties to MU and the campus research reactor were both factors when the company IsoTherapeutics Group approached the Missouri Innovation Center with the intent of establishing VesicaMed in mid-Missouri.

Andrologica
Principal: Peter Sutovsky, assistant professor of animal science at MU
Current status: Product development in concept stages. Currently seeking other principals.
Profile:
Peter Sutovsky has developed a new test for determining male infertility. Traditional semen testing methods look at the quantity of sperm and the sperm’s ability to move in the right direction. Even though the quantity and quality of the sperm might be sufficient to fertilize an egg, the sperm might already be under attack by the ubiquitin protein. This protein is part of the body’s natural waste management system and attaches itself to defective sperm cells.
Sutovsky found that a high level of ubiquitin in a sperm sample is in indication of infertility, and he developed several methods of measuring the level of ubiquitination. He filed for a patent in 1999, while at the University of Oregon. Andrologica will commercialize this system in a home testing kit.
The kit is currently on the concept stage. Although the test has proved viable in a small sample, the results need to be confirmed by repetition in a larger group. Andrologica is currently looking for additional principals. Paternity Testing Corporation in Columbia is among the companies taking part in this dialogue.