Medical Therapeutics

Avista Therapeutics

Brief Description

Avista Therapeutics develops innovative gene therapies for retinal diseases, including rare ophthalmic conditions that have a profound impact on quality of life. The company leverage a computationally guided scAAVengr platform to generate and validate a toolkit of proprietary AAV vectors. A quantitative, in vivo-based approach and clinical ophthalmology expertise allows Avista Therapeutics to rapidly translate new gene therapies to the clinic.

Inventors

Stephen Graf Brohawn, Hillel Adesnik, Madeline McCloud

Company Founders

Leah Byrne (UC Berkeley PhD, 2007...

AsparaGlue

Brief Description

AsparaGlue has developed a superglue-like medical adhesive for external wound closure and internal tissue adhesion. The proprietary technology is the world’s only biocompatible and biodegradable medical superglue.

Timeline 2023. Company founded; joins Berkeley Skydeck accelerator, cohort 16 Inventors

Philip Messersmith, Subhajit Pal, Ji Soo Shin, Kelsey Gray DeFrates

Azalea Therapeutics, Inc.

Brief Description

Azalea Therapeutics is an early-stage biotech startup on a mission to revolutionize genomic medicines. By designing vehicles that enable cell-specific delivery inside the body, the company aims to unlock precision therapeutics for genetic diseases and unleash the promise of cellular-based therapies.

Inventors

Connor Tsuchida, Jennifer Doudna, Jennifer Hamilton

Company Founders

UC Berkeley Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics and Structural Biology Jennifer Doudna, Jennifer Hamilton (UC Berkeley PhD, Doudna Lab, 2018-2023); Connor Tsuchida (UC Berkeley...

Axent Biosciences

Brief Description

Axent Biosciences is a pre-clinical stage biotechnology company developing next generation stem cell therapies to address unmet medical needs in human diseases/disorders. The company was spun out of research discoveries in the lab of UC Berkeley Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Bioengineering, and Neuroscience David Schaffer. Axent's platform technologies in stem cell manufacturing and implantation leverage 20+ years of stem cell expertise and 10+ years of biomaterials engineering to overcome major bottlenecks in the clinical development...

Valitor Inc.

Brief Description

Valitor, Inc. has developed novel methods of modifying therapeutic proteins to achieve substantial control over their pharmacokinetics, target specificity, and bioactivity. The company's technology platform can be broadly applied to improve the pharmacological properties of many protein drugs that are currently approved or under development. The lead product will be used to improve the treatment of diseases in ophthalmology. The company also has development pipelines for oncology and orthopedics products.

The company was incubated at Berkeley Skydeck, UC Berkeley's...

Algen Biotechnologies

Brief Description

Algen Biotechnologies is building a next-generation, functional genomics-based platform for the discovery of novel therapeutics for cancers with high unmet need. Algen’s research group focuses on developing and applying novel functional genomics technologies to address scientific challenges in drug discovery. The company's biologists and data scientists are collaborating to deliver innovative, patient-centric medicines for the toughest-to-treat diseases.

The company was founded to commercialize technology developed at UC Berkeley while Algen Biotechnologies CEO...

ReRx Therapeutics

Brief Description

ReRx is developing novel oral 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.

Timeline 2023. Company founded; Joins Berkeley Skydeck Cohort 17 Inventors

Chi Zhu, Anders Michael Naar, Justin Yu-Sun Lee

suitX

Brief Description

suitX brought advanced accessible exoskeletons to industrial and medical markets with funding from venture capital, industry, and government.

Formerly known as U.S. Bionics.

Acquired by Ottobock in 2021.

Inventors

Homayoon Kazerooni, Adam Zoss, Andre Nguyen Van Qui, Bradley Perry, Christina Yee, Daniel Merala, David Cuban, Dong-Jin Hyun, Dylan Fairbanks, Erich Hacker, Han Woong Bae, James Alden Hatch, Jason Reid, JiaLong James Ren, Jing Song Huang, JJ Kuwata, John Wilkey, Jon Burns, Katherine Fearing, Katherine Strausser, Kibeum Ryoo, Kyunam Kim, Lace...

Caribou Biosciences Inc.

Brief Description

Caribou Biosciences is a clinical-stage CRISPR genome-editing biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing transformative therapies for patients with devastating diseases. The company’s genome-editing platform, including its Cas12a chRDNA technology, enables superior precision to develop cell therapies that are armored to potentially improve activity against diseases. Caribou is advancing a pipeline of off-the-shelf cell therapies from its CAR-T cell platform as readily available treatments for patients with hematologic malignancies and autoimmune diseases.

...

4D Molecular Therapeutics LLC

Brief Description

4D Molecular Therapeutics is a global leader in gene therapy product research and development using scientific innovation to unlock the full potential of gene therapy for patients with genetic diseases. Their robust discovery platform, termed Directed Vector Evolution, empowers creation of customized gene delivery vehicles (novel AAV vectors) to deliver normal genes to tissues or organs with defective genes. as occurs in genetic diseases. This 4DMT discovery technology was originally developed over 15 years by co-Founder David Schaffer at UC Berkeley.

Inventors David...