This week's Lab Notes has details on where Philadelphia places in a national ranking of life sciences hubs, a medical device company's latest financing, a major health insurer and lab services provider extending their partnership, a biotech company's latest product and more.
Here's the roundup:
Life sciences clusters
The Philadelphia region moved up four spots, from 9th to 5th, on this year's JLL report ranking the top life sciences clusters in the United States.
The analysis by the commercial real estate services firm determined Boston is the top-ranked market followed by San Francisco and San Diego.
Philadelphia's No. 5 ranking puts it one place behind the Washington D.C./Baltimore region and just ahead of Raleigh/Durham in North Carolina.
In its study, JLL notes leasing volumes for life sciences companies this year are down 36% from 2021 levels, due primary to businesses in the sector "hitting the pause button as they evaluate their financial outlooks and consider the most strategic ways to push through the current funding environment."
JLL noted the net footprint of local life sciences companies is poised to continue growing, with several potential build-to-suit projects being discussed with groups in expansion mode and companies "biding time" in incubators like B.Labs, CIC, Biolabs, and Pennovation.
The study also found Philadelphia has emerged as the national leader for National Institutes of Health funding for cell and gene therapy, with area institutions receiving more than $317 million between 2018 and 2022. That figure is tops among all the major life clusters. Boston was next at $290.3 million.
Philadelphia-area life science companies have raised $1.3 billion so far this year placing its sixth among the top 10 life sciences markets, according to JLL.
Toetal Solutions
The Malvern medical device company raised $1.8 million in an equity financing.
Toetal plans to use the proceeds to finalize development and pursue regulatory approval for its flagship product, the Ziptoe Hammertoe System, said William Rhoda, the company's co-founder and chief technology officer,
The private stock sale was led by Runway Healthcare, a medical technology accelerator focused on the orthopedic, cardiovascular and neurology sectors that provides both capital and direct management to medical device developers. Runway Healthcare plans to transition Toetal Solutions' ownership to a larger multi-national health care company for commercialization.
Toetal was founded last year by Rhoda and Jeff O'Donnell Jr., general partner of Runway Healthcare, to create devices for foot and ankle deformities. O'Donnell is Toetal's CEO.
The company's Ziptoe Hammertoe System is an implant that enables foot and ankle surgeons to address rigid hammertoe deformities.
Rhoda said Toetal's aim "is to improve patient outcomes while making the surgeons' lives easier."
Independence Blue Cross/Labcorp
The Philadelphia health insurer and national laboratory services company signed a multiyear contract renewal.
Financial terms of the deal are being kept confidential.
Paul Staudenmeier, senior vice president of total value contracting and reimbursement at Independence, said the organizations are working together to close gaps in care and improve members’ health through chronic disease prevention and management.
Staudenmeier said an example of that is Labcorp providing Independence members with at-home test collection kits to help them manage diabetes and screen for colon cancer and kidney disease. More than 350,000 fecal immunochemical test kits have been sent by Labcorp to Independence fully insured commercial and Medicare members between the ages of 50 and 75 to help screen for colon polyps, or early colon cancer detection, in people with an average risk.
Independence Blue Cross and Labcorp first signed a partnership agreement in 2017.
Integral Molecular
The Philadelphia biotechnology company has launched an expanded collection of its reporter virus particles (RVPs) designed to offer a safe and rapid method to study some of the most virulent pathogens including influenza; the Ebola virus; and SARS-CoV-2 — the virus responsible for Covid-19.
RVPs are "pseudoviruses" that lack the viral components required to replicate and cause disease. The reagents are used to safely screen patient sera, part of the blood, for neutralizing antibody responses generated by protective vaccines.
Integral Molecular's new RVP offerings feature expanded virus types and more than 70 SARS-CoV-2 RVPs covering all variants of concern and interest, including Omicron BA.4, BA.5 and BA.4.6 subvariants. Integral Molecular has also created custom variants, as well as thousands of mutations in the RVP format to enable prediction of viral escape and the creation of better vaccines.
Additionally, Integral Molecular's broad range of RVPs also includes a selection of influenza A and B seasonal strains, dengue, Zika, and chikungunya viruses.
Quick hits
Inventia Life Science, an Australian biotechnology company, has opened its first U.S. office and research facility at The Innovation Space in the Experimental Station in Wilmington, Delaware. Founded in 2013, Inventia, which has five employees in Wilmington, specializes in building systems capable of creating realistic 3D human tissues for drug and therapy research applications. The company's Rastrum platform creates 3D cell cultures which imitate real human tissue in terms of its structure and behaviour across a range of disease states.… The FDA approved a new drug application submitted for Tecvayli by Janssen Pharmaceutical Cos. of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), which has a larger research and development campus in Spring House. Tecvayli is a treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma.
