IPIRA Startups

IPIRA Startups

ReRx Therapeutics

Brief Description

ReRx is developing novel oral small molecule therapeutics to treat patients with severe metabolic diseases including obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, and liver diseases. The company's therapeutics target metabolic pathways involved in regulating energy homeostasis and improve treatment outcomes compared to similar pharmacological agents.

Obesity and its associated metabolic diseases remain leading causes of preventable illness and mortality worldwide. Current front-line treatments, notably injectable incretin analogs that suppress appetite and reduce food...

Solidus Biosciences, Inc.

Brief Description

Solidus' mission for the pharmaceutical industry is to improve the process of new drug development by providing proprietary decision-enabling technology to enhance drug safety, efficiency, cost, and, thereby, productivity from investment in new drug research and development.

Company Founders

UC Berkeley Professor Douglas Clark, Jonathan Dordick

Inventors

Douglas Clark, Jonathan Dordick

Formerly known as Solidus Networks. Inc.

Timeline 2005. Company founded.

Sonera Magnetics

Brief Description

Magnetometers are nearly ubiquitous in today’s world, fueling applications as diverse as medical diagnostics and self-driving cars. The most sensitive magnetometers, however, can only operate at extreme temperatures and in a shielded environment that isolates the sensor from ambient magnetic fields. Sonera Magnetics is developing a magnetometer that can operate at room temperature and in portable form factors with sensitivity comparable to the best magnetic sensors available today, dramatically increasing potential applications.

Co-founders Dominic Labanowski and...

Sift Biosciences

Brief Description

Sift Biosciences supercharges existing cancer therapies by leveraging artificial intelligence and high-throughput cellular screening to discover and design immunotherapy boosters that significantly extend cancer patient survival. The company was co-founded by Yue Clare Lou (BS ’18 Microbial Biology; PhD ’23 Microbiology) and Maddie Williams (PhD student '23-present, Molecular & Cell Biology) to commercize technology developed during their doctoral research at UC Berkeley.

Inventors

Yue "Clare" Lou, Madeline Dee Williams

Company Founders

Yue "Clare" Lou (...

Tessera Therapeutics, Inc.

Brief Description

Developer of gene writing technology designed to permanently make small and large alterations to the human genome. The company's technology helps scientists and clinicians with the ability to write small and large therapeutic messages into the genome to treat diseases at their source, enabling healthcare providers to cure their patients and improve their lives.

Tessera Scientific Advisory Board Member David Schaffer co-invented the company's foundational technology as UC Berkeley Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Bioengineering, Molecular and Cell...

Scribe Therapeutics

Brief Description

Scribe is focused on the engineering, delivery, and development of next-generation CRISPR molecules to rewrite and repair the underlying cause of genetic disorders. The molecular engineering company was spun out of discoveries in the lab of UC Berkeley Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Structural Biology and Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna. Doudna co-founded Scribe with company CEO Benjamin Oakes, who received a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from UC Berkeley in 2017, where he worked in the Doudna Lab and Savage Lab, UC Berkeley Associate Professor of...

Fixation Bio

Brief Description

Fixation Bio is on a mission to shape the future of agriculture by optimizing photosynthesis to improve plants’ ability to assimilate CO2 and adapt to future atmospheric conditions.

Inventors

David Frank Savage, Noam Prywes, Abraham Isser Flamholz

Company Founders

Noam Prywes (UC Berkeley postdoc), Jake Wintermute

Timeline 2025. Company founded

GigaCrop

Brief Description

Manufacturer of bio-derived hydrogen peroxide using synthetic biology intended to make photosynthesis better. The company engineers enzymes that are used instead of traditional chemical catalysts to remove organic solvents during the production of hydrogen peroxide, allowing the process to occur in any environment while reducing carbon emissions.

GigaCrop Founder and CEO Dr. Christopher Eiben earned his PhD in bioengineering at UC Berkeley, focusing on synthetic metabolism and protein engineering in the lab of UC Berkeley Professor Dr. Jay Keasling, a pioneer in...

Global Newborn Solutions, Inc.

Brief Description

Global Newborn Solutions (GNS) develops medical innovations to address the most vital components of neonatal health and survival in resource-limited settings.

​GNS has commercialized an infant warming device called the Dream Warmer, which was invented by UC Berkeley and LBNL researchers to save the lives of infants suffering from hypothermia in low income countries, where premature and low-birth weight infants are particularly at risk. The wrap-around pad keeps infants warm. It contains a phase-change material, which is a substance that can absorb and release large...

GenoptX, LLC

Brief Description

A CRISPR-based gene editing company.

Formerly known as Syncodi.

Inventors

Jennifer Doudna, Abraham Isser Flamholz, Dana Nadler, Benjamin Oakes, David Frank Savage

Timeline 2019. Company founded.