This week's Lab Notes has items on an in vitro diagnostic's company's new way to combat wine spoilage, a multimillion-dollar equity financing for a Philadelphia startup taking on glaucoma and more.
Here's the roundup:
bioMérieux
The French in vitro diagnostics company, which has operations in Philadelphia, partnered with Jackson Family Wines, a family-owned wine company in Sonoma County, California, to launched a new product aimed at preventing spoiled wine from hitting shelves.
The product, called BottleSafe, is designed for pre-bottling testing with the goal of rapidly detecting common wine spoilers in red and white wines. Results are generated onsite in less than four hours.
Jackson Family Wines initially entered into a partnership in 2014 with Invisible Sentinel, a Philadelphia biotechnology company that specializes in rapid molecular diagnostic test kits for the food and beverage industries. BioMerieux acquired Invisible Sentinel for $75 million in 2019.
“The winemaking process is both complicated and, at the same time, artisanal," said Benjamin Pascal, the former co-founder and chief business officer at Invisible Sentinel who now serves as an executive at bioMerieux. "We’re passionate about minimizing risk throughout the entirety of the production process to enhance our customers’ confidence that the quality of their product will be preserved and, subsequently, consumed in the way they intend."
BottleSafe's technology is able to provide "actionable information" to wine makers so they can then verify final filtration. The four-hour time period, according to bioMerieux, is a "significant decrease" from the current period of two to five days needed for traditional microbiology testing, which requires sending samples to a lab testing, or using Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) products.
BioMerieux's other products include vinoBrett, an onsite PCR assays for detecting spoilages throughout the winemaking process, and vinoPal, a PCR test that detects the presence of harmful bacteria during the winemaking process, especially during harvesting.
Avisi Technologies
The Philadelphia medical technology company raised $4.06 million in a private stock sale, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The seed round was led by Accanto Partners. New investors participating in the round were Good Growth Capital, Mountain State Capital, LSGPA, and Gaingels. Existing investors who participated included Ben Franklin Technology Partners, Quaker Capital, and Life Science Angels.
Avisi was founded in 2017 by University of Pennsylvania students Rui Jing Jiang, the company's CEO, and Brandon Kao and Adarsh Battu, who were studying business and engineering and developed the idea to use nanotechnology to improve how glaucoma is treated.
The company's lead product, VisiPlate, is a next-generation aqueous shunt that is 20 times thinner than a human hair. Its goal is to treat glaucoma, a condition that causes excess fluid within the eye that puts pressure on the optic nerve, ultimately leading to irreversible vision loss.
Jiang said the investment funds will be used to expedite the company's clinical development of VisiPlate and to support additional research and development activities.
Avisi is in the process of moving its headquarters to California, but the company intends to maintain a presence in Philadelphia through its work at the Singh Center for Nanotechnology on Penn's campus, Jiang said.
Aclaris Therapeutics
The Wayne-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company announced Dr. Neal Walker, its co-founder and CEO, will transition to the role of board chair effective Jan. 1.
Walker will continue to help guide the long-term strategic direction of Aclaris, the company said.
Dr. Doug Manion, the company's president and chief operating officer, is being promoted to CEO at the start of next year and will continue to serve as president. Manion will also serve as a member of the Aclaris board of directors.
Aclaris (NASDAQ: ACRS) also announced Frank Ruffo, the company's co-founder and chief financial officer, is retiring effective Dec. 31. Ruffo has served as the company’s CFO since its inception in 2012. Kevin Balthaser, vice president of finance, will take over as CFO on Jan. 1.
Quick hits
GSK (NYSE: GSK), which is based in London and has a large presence in the Philadelphia region, said this week it had initiated the process for withdrawing the U.S. marketing authorization for its blood cancer drug Blenrep following a request from the Food and Drug Administration. The request was based on the results of a Phase 3 confirmatory trial for Blenrep, which did not meet the requirements of the FDA's accelerated approval regulations. … California-based Iovance Therapeutics (NASDAQ: IOVA), which has a cell therapy manufacturing plant at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, extended the completion date for its ongoing rolling biologics license application submission for lifileucel to the first quarter of 2023. The company said the additional time is needed to respond to the FDA's request for supplemental assay validation information and comparability data for lifileucel, an experimental cell therapy for patients with advanced melanoma.
