To understand the BioTech startups in the Inland Empire, you’ve got to scan what’s coming out of two entities, the first being Murrieta Innovation Center and the second being UC Riverside’s Wet Lab Incubator. Both organizations are vital in incubating the Inland Empire’s BioTech startups.
The University of California, Riverside, got $2.5 million for Inland Empire’s first entrepreneurial life sciences incubator in 2019. An additional $2.5 million of State of California grants and internal UC Riverside funds were pooled to build the university’s wet lab incubator.
The Murrieta Innovation Center, or MIC, opened its doors in 2015 when the City of Murrieta housed MIC in the old city hall complex in Riverside County near Interstates 15 and 215. It has nine BioTech start-ups in the Southwest Riverside County area & houses several resource organizations.
We covered this in our Weekly Wire Round up
Murrieta Genomics
This is not a BioTech startup but an incubator that houses other BioTech startups. Based out of the Murrieta Innovation Center, this Inland Empire BioTech incubator called Murrieta Genomics, LLC, the Southern California genomic sequencing business incubator, helps BioTech startups launch genomic sequencing in precision medicine, agriculture, forensics, veterinary and direct-to-consumer applications. It provides access to the specialized equipment, know-how, and mentors to help commercialize genomic sequencing startup ideas.
One of the first BioTech companies it incubated in 2018 was EpigeneticsRX, a company dedicated to preventive medicine guided by epigenetic information.
Basilard BioTech
Basilard Biotech is a Southern California-based company that works in engineering cell-based therapies in Cell and Gene Therapy (CGT). In 2019, the company released a gene delivery technology platform called Celletto™.
The startup’s technology was patented at the University of California, Riverside, then licensed to startup Basilard BioTech.
SimplSeq
Located at MIC, SimplSeq improves genomic sequencing by simplifying the sample preparation process. The BioTech startup simplifies and automates the genomic sequencing workflow process.
SimplSeq raised its seed round in March this year when it announced obtaining $500K from an investor whom the company leadership met at the JP Morgan Conference.
“We met with our investor at the JP Morgan conference in San Francisco. He was already convinced that we had something special, but it helped to meet with him and some of his advisors to fully explain the merits of the company’s technology.”
John Powers, SimplSeq’s CEO
GattaCo, Inc.
GattaCo is a BioTech startup that automates sample collection and processing. It does so by rapid & high-quality sample purification. One of its recent inventions is the A-PON Kit, a kit-based technology for blood component separation at the point of need.
It has also developed technologies for membrane-based filtration and sample purification.
NeyroblastGX
NeyroblastGX LLC (NGL), a BioTech startup founded in 2020 out of the Murrieta Innovation Center, CA, develops next-generation theranostic products for neurodegenerative and infectious diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and COVID-19.
Swellter, Inc.
Swellter is a patient immersion platform providing content and information for oncology patients. Laboratory and pharmaceutical companies can share relevant and potentially transformative diagnostic and therapeutic options with oncologists and cancer patients.
TRIO Pharmaceuticals
TRIO Pharmaceuticals is a cancer immunotherapeutic company making drugs that directly stop tumor growth and selectively stop immunosuppression in the tumor without targeting the current immune checkpoint pathways. It was incubated at the Murrieta Innovation Center.
The startup recently announced partnerships with other companies in the BioTech space.
Karamedica. Inc.
Karamedica’s founders have developed and patented non-thermal atmospheric pressure nitrogen plasma technology for decontaminating delicate biomaterials like chitosan. Chitosan is a biopolymer that has shown tremendous promise in the medical literature as a hemostatic agent, immune adjuvant, drug delivery vehicle, tissue scaffold, and many other medical applications.
The startup received a $2.5 million Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase II grant from the National Institute on Aging.
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