From: Denver Business Journal,October 6-12, (Isogenis used to be named Biohybrid.) 2000
By AMY FLETCHER
Business Journal Staff Reporter
Denver-based Biohybrid Inc. received a 2$ million grant from a federal agency to accelerate research and clinical testing of its organ transplant drugs.
The grant, awarded Oct. 4, is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Advanced Technology program. The 54 projects are valued at $274 million in private and federal funding.
“We know our research works;that’s why we got the grant,” said President and Chief Operating Officer John Price.“Now we have to test it.”
high-risk research and development projects with the The Advanced Technology Program provides funding for potential to spark important, broad-based economic benefits for the United States.These are projects that industry on its own could not fully support because of the technical frisk involved.
Biohybrid was founded in 1997 by a group of private investors with a Small Business Innovation Research Grant from the National Institutes of Health.Its original goal was to produce drugs to control the function of the immune system, but now the company is more focused on preventing the rejection of organ transplants.
Currently, transplant rejection can only be prevented by general immune system suppression, which for patients may mean taking drugs that can have toxic side effects, leaving them with an impaired immune system that can not effectively fight infections.
Biohybrid’s products, if they make it to market, would shorten the amount of time patients had to take medications, mean fewer hospitalizations and eliminate toxic side effects.
That could mean big savings to insurance companies. According to Biohybrid, more than half of the cost of organ transplants arise from re-hospitalization due to transplant rejection and side effects from immune-suppressing drugs. Alternate treatments that are available in some situations, such as kidney dialysis, can create even higher costs.
Biohybrid’s business strategy has been to create revenue by licensing some of its technology.For example, the company announced in November that it inked an agreement with Micromet GmpH of Germany that gave it payments of more than $3 million.
The company has received funding from private investors, government grants, and venture capitalists.