Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

Four companies will compete next Tuesday, November 19, for the $10,000 top prize when Holland & Knight LLP sponsors the “Venture Forum” during LSTCON, the annual conference of Life Science Tennessee. In addition, conference attendees will vote on their favorite pitches during the competition to select the “People’s Choice Award” presented by the University of Tennessee Research Foundation.

Those competing are:

1. Kingsport-based Auros Pharma, a start-up pharmaceutical company focused on revolutionizing treatment of respiratory arrest caused by drug overdose, cardiac arrest, and COPD exacerbations. Their approach to drug development is to maximize efficient use of recourses to create novel medications that will still be affordable and therefore accessible to those who need them most.
2. Corami, a Memphis-based start-up that is revolutionizing heart disease by delivering therapeutics directly to the heart’s outer layers. Corami’s platform taps into a unique space on the heart’s surface — the pericardial cavity — to deliver therapeutics. Using the PerCor™ system, therapeutics embedded in a proprietary controlled-release hydrogel, GelCor™, are placed within the pericardial cavity. This minimally invasive approach can reduce dosing and off-target toxicity— beneficial to any cardiac drug delivery, but essential to the clinical translation of cardiac gene therapy.
3. Nashville-headquartered Empath Biosciences discovers and structurally engineers natural products to generate novel classes of drugs that serve as unique anti-cancer agents. Empath will focus its discovery and development efforts on diseases with high-unmet needs; where current therapies are insufficient or non-existent; and where patients are in desperate need of care. Empath seeks to develop therapies that provide patients with new alternatives to existing care, whether symptomatic relief or curative.
4. Infusense, also from Nashville, is a start-up that developed a biosensor technology for rapid, low-cost, and very accurate drug quantification. Their mission is to revolutionize healthcare by saving millions of lives and billions of dollars with a cutting-edge point-of-care technology, eliminating the need for traditional lab testing to deliver rapid, precise drug quantification.

The conference runs all day on November 19 at The Westin Hotel in Nashville. To register, click here.

On Monday night November 18, Holland & Knight will host the finale of the Scipreneur Challenge at its Nashville office. Organized by BioTN, the nonprofit sibling of Life Science Tennessee, that event will feature four teams comprised of students and post-docs who will pitch mock businesses from real intellectual property provided by Tennessee’s leading research institutions. To register for that event, click here.

---