St. Louis-based life sciences startup Un&Up has been awarded $3 million in federal funds to advance its efforts to develop technology to treat strokes.
Un&Up has received a two-year, $3.05 million phase II Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health, to develop a pharmaceutical platform focused on treating acute ischemic strokes.
Un&Up, which stands for Unmet Needs and Underserved Populations, launched in 2018 and was founded by President and CEO Francis “Duke” Creighton and Chief Operating Officer Peter Finley. Creighton founded Pulse Therapeutics and was key to the development of technology at St. Louis medical device maker Stereotaxis. Finley is a co-founder of St. Louis-based private equity firm Thompson Street Capital Partners. Un&Up says it's focused on developing therapeutic products that can provide treatment for “underserved populations.”
The $3 million grant from NINDS will be used by Un&Up to advance its TheraLode thrombolysis pharmaceutical platform for treatment of acute ischemic strokes, which are caused by blood clots. Of the 795,000 people who have strokes each year, ischemic strokes account for 87% of strokes, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
Creighton said TheraLode is a “clot busting drug” that aims to resolve blood clots through thrombolysis, a treatment currently for patients with ischemic strokes. However, Creighton said thrombolysis has a risk of blood loss, which can keep doctors from using it on patients. Creighton said TheraLode includes "proprietary magnetic nanoparticles” that allow for more quickly resolving blood clots, lessening the possibility of hemorrhaging. He said the technology is also being designed to be transported with patients when transferred to stroke centers. Un&Up estimates its technology could be used to treat 10 times more stroke patients compared with current figures. Creighton said proof of concept work has been completed on TheraLode, with the Un&Up focused on putting together a pre-clinical safety package for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Un&Up’s funding from NINDS marks the latest government funding it has received to advance its research efforts, with the firm having won 16 government awards since 2019. The company has put a focus on using non-dilutive funding rather than venture investment.
“To really make high impact technologies, we need the freedom to fail, for a lack of a better word, and pivot and it’s really hard to justify that with private capital,” Creighton said. “We wanted to make sure we are able to really de-risk the major aspects as they relate to mechanism of action and safety before we go out there and raise money.”
Un&Up said academic partners on its development of TheraLode include Colin Derdeyn of University of Iowa, Thomas Hemmen from University of California San Diego, Peter Panagos of Washington University and Bruce Campbell of Royal Melbourne University.
In addition to its stroke treatment, Un&Up has focused research efforts on developing a magnetic navigation system for heart procedures. Creighton said currently it is focusing efforts on that project, as well as TheraLode. Creighton said the goal is to spin out the technologies as their own companies as they further develop.
“Since 2019, when we started receiving NIH awards, it was more of a broad focus and then we relied on the NIH process to help us pick those projects that are the most commercially viable through the SBIR program. Now that we have two big ones, those are the ones we’ve decided to put all of our energy behind,” he said.
Un&Up, based in Midtown, has seven full-time and four part-time employees, as well as five summer interns.
