Early-Stage Biomedical Accelerator Gains $21M Initial Funding

(SecretService.gov)

BioMotiv, a Cleveland company supporting early-stage medical research for commercial development into therapies, secured $21 million in its first financing round. The funds are being provided by BioMotiv’s founding investors, University Hospitals health care system in northeast Ohio and the Harrington Family of Hudson, Ohio, a supporter of translational biomedical research.

The company provides financing for early-stage research by physician-scientists to speed their discoveries to market. BioMotiv aims specifically at filling the development gap often called the Valley of Death, between initial laboratory research and clinical trials.

BioMotiv — a for-profit entity — operates by in-licensing academic or medical center lab discoveries that are ready to enter the advanced discovery stage, the preclinical stage, or the first stage of human clinical trials. The company then will support further development of the concept to the point of out-licensing to enterprises that can complete product development and commercialization.

The company says it looks for validated technologies, with a solid intellectual property position, clear development path, and a solid business case with the ability to build value over a three year period. Biomotiv says it will consider platform technologies that can address multiple disorders, repurposed drugs for specific diseases, new therapeutics with companion diagnostics, and treatments aimed at neglected patient populations. The company says it is now screening some 20 candidates from academic medical centers in Cleveland and elsewhere in the U.S., as well as biopharmaceutical companies.

BioMotiv is affiliated with the Harrington Project for Discovery and Development, a $250 million initiative announced in February by University Hospitals to advance translational research to commercialization. Part of that initiative is University Hospitals’ Harrington Discovery Institute that supports basic research by physician scientists, which also serves as a source of potential technologies for BioMotiv.

Read more:

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• Kauffman Helping Stanford Student Accelerator Go National
• Students, Postdocs, Policies Drive University Spinoffs
• Michigan State Forms Subsidiary to Encourage Start-Ups
• Maryland University, VC Partner on Start-Up Accelerator

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