Technology Transfer

Spinoff company is all in the CU Boulder family

Anonymous — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 16:06:37 +0000

Spinoff company is all in the CU Boulder family Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 02/08/2017 - 09:06

In 1997, Professor Alan Weimer of chemical and biological engineering heard a campus talk by Professor Steven George of chemistry about a novel process of coating surfaces with the thinnest of materials possible, known as atomic layer deposition (ALD).

“One of the things Steve talked about was putting an extremely thin film coating on a flat piece of metal as part of a research project for the U.S. Navy looking for ways to better protect the hulls of ships,” explains Weimer, an expert in fine particle processing. “We talked afterward and eventually decided to team up on the research.”

The thickness, or lack thereof, of ALD is breathtaking. Each layer of the coatings the researchers lay down is generally the thickness of a single atom—about a million times smaller than the thickness of a human hair. The team also can control the number of atomic layers, changing up the chemistry depending on the project.

Starting up a start-up

Within a few years Weimer and George had filed a number of patents on the technology, gaining exclusive rights to a wide range of intellectual property. When the CU Technology Transfer Office strongly hinted it would be a good move to start a spin-off company, Weimer and George sought out CU Boulder postdoctoral researcher Karen Buechler, who was working in Weimer’s lab at the time.

“They told me they knew I was looking for a job, and they needed someone who has the energy to pursue this outside of the university,” she recalls. “So I said I would do it. But we still needed someone who had experience running a business, which none of us had.”

No problem. Weimer called Mike Masterson, his former graduate school office mate at CU Boulder in chemical engineering. Masterson, who was embarking on a career in Boston as a venture capitalist, became the first and only CEO of ALD NanoSolutions (ALD Nano).

“In a weak moment I said ‘Sure, I’ll do that,’” Masterson recalls with a laugh. ALD Nano was now officially rolling with its four CU Boulder co-founders.

“When you start a company, there are a lot of things you can’t control, and there is a lot of luck involved,” says Masterson, who has started eight high-tech companies. “You really can’t control the markets and you can’t control the global economic environment. But one thing you can control is who you get into business with. With Al, Steve and Karen, I knew I was going to be working with honest, smart and very dedicated people.”

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CU spinoff ALD Nanosolutions reports successful year

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Nov 2016 20:22:26 +0000

CU spinoff ALD Nanosolutions reports successful year Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 11/08/2016 - 13:22

A Broomfield company that emerged from University of Colorado Boulder research labs is reporting a “banner year” marked by new patents, an expanded customer base and doubled manufacturing space.

ALD Nanosolutions was cofounded in 2001 by Professor Al Weimer of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Professor Steve George of Chemistry and Biochemistry, along with CU alumni Mike Masterson and Karen Buechler.

The company uses a process called atomic layer deposition (ALD) to apply near-perfect, ultrathin films to particles, improving the performance, safety and other characteristics of products including LED lighting, batteries, sensors, medical devices and catalysts. The process is considered more precise than other methods and more cost-effective, as less of the precursor gases is wasted.

In 2016, the company continued pioneering new applications for ALD, obtaining several new patents, including some licensed from the University of Colorado Boulder. This brings ALD Nano’s total patent holdings to 28 issued and 14 pending.

This year, the company achieved its first commercial application of particle ALD for cathode active materials used to produce lithium-ion batteries. The ALD-enabled materials will dramatically improve performance, extend the life cycle and enhance the safety of batteries used in consumer electronics, electric vehicles and grid storage.

It also began commercial production of particle ALD phosphors for a Fortune Global 500 customer, helping LED lights to stay brighter longer using a fraction of the coating material required by other deposition methods.

The company also doubled its manufacturing space and added new reactors and staff members to increase its production capacity in the last year. ALD Nanosolutions employs several CU graduates, said Weimer, who is still active with the company.

Weimer said he expects the majority of LEDs and cathode battery materials will be coated using particle ALD within the next several years. He praised the company for the sacrifice and patience that allowed it to make steady, incremental growth while some competitors failed.

“It’s really, really difficult to bootstrap like they did, and it’s a company that started out with nothing other than some intellectual property and over time, despite all these economic downturns, built this up to a company that I think has a really outstanding future,” Weimer said.

Masterson, CEO of ALD Nanosolutions, said the year’s growth validates the founders’ early vision and will guide its future strategy.

“We'll enter 2017 firmly positioned with differentiated technology and expertise to help such companies achieve their technology and cost-of-production goals,” he said. “Our growth is a tribute to the steady efforts of our team and the extraordinary innovation contributed by each individual."

A Broomfield company that emerged from University of Colorado Boulder research labs is reporting a “banner year” marked by new patents, an expanded customer base and doubled manufacturing space.

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ChBE Startup Nanoly Bioscience Wins Silicon Valley Tech Award for Vaccine Innovation

Anonymous — Wed, 19 Nov 2014 17:07:44 +0000

ChBE Startup Nanoly Bioscience Wins Silicon Valley Tech Award for Vaccine Innovation Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 11/19/2014 - 10:07

Balaji Sridhar is a CU Boulder Chemical Engineering PhD candidate halfway through two years of the Medical Scientist Training Program, a joint effort between CU campuses in Denver and Boulder. After receiving his PhD degree, he will head back to medical school. He is also leading a company that aims to save millions around the world who die from vaccine-preventable diseases.

Sridhar is headed home after a week-long stay in Silicon Valley where he accepted the Katherine M. Swanson Young Innovator Award for his company, Nanoly Bioscience, Inc. The Tech Awards, given by The Tech Museum of Innovation, honors innovators from around the world who are applying technology to benefit humanity, and Sridhar is already working towards that goal.

The World Health Organization estimates that 2.1 million people die each year from vaccine-preventable diseases. In addition, a significant fraction of vaccines never make it to patients due to temperature spoilage. Nanoly Bioscience is working to bypass the vaccine “cold chain,” which is a refrigerated system of transporting and storing vaccines within the narrow temperature range of 35 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit. The strict temperature limitations are necessary to prevent vaccine proteins from denaturing, rendering the vaccines inactive. Keeping vaccines at a certain temperature restricts their ability to be delivered to remote areas of the world where there is no electricity or refrigeration – areas that could benefit from vaccines the most.

“We are developing a polymer that can be blended with vaccines to prevent spoilage without refrigeration,” says Sridhar. “The polymer is non-toxic, and exposure to light will disassemble the polymer so that the vaccine is ready for delivery.”

Nanoly was one of ten teams from around the world selected for the Tech Awards. Each team receives cash prizes from the awards’ major sponsors and Sridhar also spent part of the week meeting with mentors and venture capital investors about the company’s vaccine polymer.

BioFrontiers’ Associate Director, Kristi Anseth, a Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering and a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator, is one of four advisers for Nanoly Bioscience. The company nucleated in Anseth’s lab in the Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnology Building at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Anseth continues to support the scientific development of the new company.

“Nanoly is a great example of what we are trying to do in my lab, at BioFrontiers and in this building,” says Anseth. “We want to empower scientists to work across disciplines, give them access to technology and resources, and support their entrepreneurial work. This is a new way of bridging the gap between academics and industry, one that engages students and enables them to pursue independent ideas, so that we can get technologies like this one out into the world faster.”

Nanoly Bioscience, Inc. can be found online at www.nanoly.info or on Twitter @nanolyb.

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Patent for Improving Drug Formulations Awarded to Ted Randolph and BaroFold

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Apr 2014 20:57:53 +0000

Patent for Improving Drug Formulations Awarded to Ted Randolph and BaroFold Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/28/2014 - 14:57

A research team led by ChBE Gillespie Professor Ted Randolph, John Carpenter (CU School of Pharmacy), and the CU-based company BaroFold, Inc. has been awarded a patent for improving protein-based drug formulations used to treat cancers, infectious diseases and several other diseases. The invention reduces sub-visible particles that can cause adverse immune responses in the patient.

Other inventors on the patent are ChBE doctoral graduates Amber (Haynes) Fradkin and Matthew Seefeldt (now president of BaroFold).

The patent (U.S. 8,697,848, “Method for Reducing Immunogenicity of Therapeutic Protein Compositions”) was issued on April 15, 2014, with a related patent application pending in the U.S. and patent protection also being sought in Europe and Canada. Prosecution for this patent family began in July 2010.

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3M Licenses Dental Polymer Technology Developed by Bowman-Led Team

Anonymous — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 15:49:45 +0000

3M Licenses Dental Polymer Technology Developed by Bowman-Led Team Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 03/22/2013 - 09:49

An advanced polymer technology developed by a team led by ChBE Distinguished Professor Christopher Bowman was recently licensed to 3M, a diversified technology company based in St. Paul, Minn. The licensed technology enables formation of very low-shrinkage composites, improving performance of many materials currently used in dental fillings and sealants, dentures and dental implants.

Current dental restoration methods use light-cured polymer materials fitted by a dentist or oral surgeon. Eventually, the internal stresses built up within the material by the curing process cause it to shrink, which decreases the effectiveness and durability of the restoration.

For example, as the material within a dental filling shrinks, the seal binding the filling to the tooth surface is compromised and recurrent decay may occur beneath the fillings. This can cause serious damage to patients’ gums and teeth damage until repaired.

The process pioneered by Bowman uses a unique light-cured material that reduces the physical stress within dental composites, avoiding shrinkage and other physical changes in the restoration. Dental restorations using this new composition will prove more durable, require fewer replacements, and improve patient comfort and dental health.

“We are delighted that 3M has licensed Dr. Bowman’s polymerization technology, and we believe that the technology presents the 3M team with numerous opportunities for product development not only in dental applications but in any product category that would benefit from reduced polymer shrinkage,” said MaryBeth Vellequette, a licensing manager at CU’s Technology Transfer Office.

The CU Technology Transfer Office provides patent and other commercialization support to researchers at CU's four campuses, and serves as a liaison for industry partners interested in commercializing CU technologies.

Contact:
Lindsay Lennox, CU Technology Transfer Office, 303-735-5518

lindsay.lennox@cu.edu

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BaroFold Licenses Technology to Boehringer Ingelheim and Nuron

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 21:17:44 +0000

BaroFold Licenses Technology to Boehringer Ingelheim and Nuron Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/16/2012 - 14:17

BaroFold Inc., a pharmaceutical company focused on the patented Pressure Enabled Protein Manufacturing (PreEMT) technology invented in the labs of ChBE Professor Theodore Randolph and Dr. John Carpenter, has recently licensed its technology to both Boehringer Ingelheim and Nuron Biotech. Read more about these collaborative efforts below:

Boehringer Ingelheim and BaroFold Announce Strategic Agreement on PreEMT™ High Pressure Protein Refolding Technology

and

Nuron Biotech Completes Enrollment of a Pivotal Phase 3 Study for Proprietary Recombinant Human Interferon Beta-1b (NU100) in Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis

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Tech Transfer: ChBE Fuels Economy with 10 Startups

Anonymous — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 21:17:19 +0000

Tech Transfer: ChBE Fuels Economy with 10 Startups Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/31/2012 - 15:17

Ten active companies have been created since 1997 based on technologies invented wholly or in part by CU chemical and biological engineering students and their faculty supervisors. Chemical and biological engineering spinoff companies from CU-Boulder have raised nearly $410 million in follow-on funding, including grants, venture capital financing, U.S. Small Business Administration funding, and acquisitions, according to CU's Technology Transfer Office.

One of the greatest success stories has been Copernican Energy, an ultra-clean, bio-based fuels company using a high-temperature radiant particle reactor to turn cellulosic material into green gasoline, which was purchased by Sundrop Fuels in 2008. The company was co-founded in 2006 by Professor Al Weimer, CU student Chris Perkins who earned his doctorate the same year, and distinguished engineering alumnus Mike Masterson (MS ChemEngr '77). Sundrop Fuels plans to break ground on a $450 million plant near Alexandria, Louisiana, in December of this year. This facility is expected to produce about 3,500 barrels of renewable gasoline per day. The plant will convert sustainable forest residues and thinnings with natural gas into bio-based "green gasoline" using a production path that integrates gasification, gas purification, methanol synthesis, and a methanol-to-gasoline process. The planned result will be ready-to-use, inexpensive car fuel. The company plans to follow up the facility with larger scale plants to produce a combined production capacity of more than one billion gallons by 2020.

Click here for more on Technology Transfer.

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CU Looks to Consultants to Boost Tech Transfer Proceeds

Anonymous — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 22:55:07 +0000

CU Looks to Consultants to Boost Tech Transfer Proceeds Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 09/28/2012 - 16:55

Recognizing the revenue potential of CU-licensed science moving to the commercial market, CU is looking at how to best maximize proceeds from technology transfer. The university plans to soon seek bids from consultants to help with this process. A 2012 article in Boulder’s Daily Camera discussed the potential of the JSCBB to result in new commercial companies and also highlighted Professor Al Weimer’s company ALD NanoSolutions as a company based on technology developed at CU.

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Chris Bowman Receives 2012 Tech Commercialization Grant

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 22:50:34 +0000

Chris Bowman Receives 2012 Tech Commercialization Grant Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 06/07/2012 - 16:50

Christopher Bowman was one of ten to receive a 2012 Tech Commercialization Grant from the state of Colorado for developing inexpensive, highly-efficient synthetic nucleic acids for use in nano-assembly, bio-detection and other bio-functional applications. His project was selected to receive a grant through Colorado’s Bioscience Discovery Evaluation Grant Program (BDEG-Co). The State of Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade began the BDEG program in 2007, providing proof-of-concept grants to move promising CU biotechnologies closer to market readiness, as well as early-stage matching “seed” grants to enable the development and commercial validation of technologies that are licensed from Colorado research institutions by Colorado based start-up companies (learn about 2011-12 grants to CU licensees under this program).

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OPX Biotechnology is 2012 Bioscience Company of the Year

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:37:37 +0000

OPX Biotechnology is 2012 Bioscience Company of the Year Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 01/17/2012 - 15:37

OPX Biotechnologies was recognized as Bioscience Company of the Year in 2012 by the University of Colorado’s Technology Transfer Office. OPXBIO (Boulder, CO) is a venture-backed company making renewable bio-based chemicals and fuels that are lower cost, higher return and more sustainable than existing petroleum-based products. This company is based on technology transfer from the research labs of ChBE Professor Ryan Gill.

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