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Luke Timmerman 10/28/08

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There are some intriguing ideas being put to the test in these companies, some of which have been profiled by Xconomy. Here they are:

—AVM Biotech. The company had a vague description on the program about discovering and developing safe, effective, and “affordable and ethical human therapeutics.” That’s a phrase you don’t often see, and sounds worthy of further investigation by your local biotech scribe.

—Biodesic. This company is providing engineering and strategic consulting for biotechs.

—Fate Therapeutics. This is the high-profile adult stem cell company, which Bob profiled for us a few months ago. It has scientists in Boston, Seattle, and San Diego, so we intend to have this one covered here at Xconomy.

—GPC-Rx. I broke the story about this company getting some seed funding from Accelerator back when we first launched in Seattle in June. It comes from the lab of Caltech chemist William Goddard, a co-founder of Seattle-based Allozyne.

—Immune Design. This company, led by Steve Reed, raised $18 million in its initial round of venture capital to develop a next generation of more specific vaccines. In fact, Immune Design has set up shop just downstairs from the Xconomy office, so we will do our best to keep tabs on its progress.

—Impel Neuropharma. I wrote about this UW spinoff back in August. It is working on a device to delivery pain medications deep into the sinus cavity, where they can come into contact with neurons, so the drugs can get where they need to go in the brain without causing toxicity throughout the body.

—Mirina. This is another child of Accelerator, which in this case is focused on developing microRNA drugs.

—Onkor Pharma. The Sammamish, WA-based company is developing small-molecule drugs for cancer.

—PhaseRx. This company is working on more effective ways to deliver RNA interference drugs. Frazier Healthcare Ventures veteran Bob Overell is running this show.

—Recodagen. A spinoff of Washington State University backed by Accelerator, Recodagen is working on disease targets for treating solid tumors.

—Silere Medical Systems. The Redmond, WA-based startup is developing an implantable electrical neural stimulator for hearing, balance and perception disorders.

—Veratect. The Kirkland, WA-based company is working on using information technology to detect early warning signs of infectious disease outbreaks for government agencies or corporations.

Luke Timmerman is the National Biotechnology Editor for Xconomy. You can e-mail him at ltimmerman@xconomy.com, call 206-624-2374, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ldtimmerman.

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