PROVIDENCE – The Slater Technology Fund today announced a $500,000 investment in ProThera Biologics Inc., an East Providence-based biomedical startup that is developing inhibitor proteins to treat inflammatory illness, such as severe infection (sepsis) and cancer.
ProThera – founded in 2001 by Dr. Yow-Pin Lim and Douglas C. Hixson, research scientists at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School and Lifespan’s Rhode Island Hospital – is developing diagnostic and therapeutic products based on natural serine protease inhibitors known as inter-alpha inhibitor proteins, or IaIp.
Hixson is a research professor in the Brown medical school’s Department of Medicine and Pathology, director of the molecular carcinogenesis lab at RIH’s Division of Hematology and Oncology, and director of the hospital’s Center for Biological Research Excellence (COBRE) for Cancer Research Development.
Lim, who met Hixson when he was a post-doctoral student in the hospital’s carcinogenesis lab, joined the Brown faculty in 1993 as an assistant research professor. He is ProThera’s president and chief scientific officer.
The company had received another $100,000 from Slater in 2007. ProThera’sconnection with the fund stretches back to 2001, when Lim and Hixson received an initial research grant of $100,000.
Since then, their company has attracted more than $3.5 million in federal grants through four branches of the National Institutes of Health, to study the treatment of and anthrax infection and the severe infection known as sepsis. (READ MORE) And this year, it received a $200,000 collaborative research grant from the R.I. Science and Technology Council (STAC) for a project with Dr. Surendra Sharma, a professor of pediatrics and pathology at Brown and Women & Infants’ Hospital, that focuses on the use of IaIp in pregnancy-related complications. (READ MORE)
ProThera also is working with Dr. Steven M. Opal, a Brown professor of medicine and director of the Infectious Disease Division at Memorial Hospital, on two NIH-funded studies that will examine the use of IaIp in biodefense – against anthrax, for instance – and against flu or other pandemic illness.
“ProThera’s research with their lead molecule, IaIp, represents a potential major advance in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of serious and life-threatening infectious and non-infectious diseases for which current options are unavailable, limited or unsatisfactory,” Dr. Andrew W. Artenstein, physician-in-chief of the Department of Medicine at Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island, where he also directs the Center for Biodefense and Emerging Pathogens, and an associate professor of medicine and community health at Brown’s medical school, said in a statement.
“Importantly, they have assembled collaborative research teams with some of the most highly regarded medical researchers in their respective fields,” Artenstein said.
“We are fortunate to have the kind of scientific expertise within the state that can optimize the chances for success. Dr. Opal, for example, is an internationally-recognized leader in the field of sepsis and overwhelming systemic infections, and one of the most experienced researchers in this area.”
Biotechnology veteran Richard A. Andrews – a co-founder of the former Nephros Therapeutics (now RenaMed Biologics), a developer of renal cell replacement therapy that originally was based in Lincoln – will be joining ProThera as an adviser in connection with the new Slater investment. He “has extensive experience in the development and management of new ventures in biologicals, diagnostics, and medical devices,” the fund said.
“ProThera has had tremendous success in recruiting clinical collaborators of national prominence and winning the support of federal funding agencies to advance the clinical development of its natural serine protease inhibitors,” Richard G. Horan, senior managing director of the Slater Fund, said in announcing the new support.
“With additional investment, and with Rick Andrews coming on-board, we are excited about the prospects of accelerating the company’s efforts in the development of what promise to be significant advances in clinical medicine.”
The Slater Technology Fund, established in 1997 by then-Gov. Lincoln Almond and the R.I. General Assembly, provides seed capital to technology-based businesses in Rhode Island. Additional information is available at www.SlaterFund.com.
ProThera Biologics Inc., founded in 2001, is an early-stage biotechnology company developing diagnostic and therapeutic products for the treatment of severe infections and other life-threatening inflammatory conditions. Additional information is available at www.ProTheraBiologics.com.
