PHILADELPHIA--(November 8, 2017) – Three companies aiming to simplify and streamline healthcare fields have set up shop at the Science Center’s Port business incubator. ChromaTan, InnaMed and Group K Diagnostics are all occupying lab space at 3624 Market Street.
A transplant from State College, PA and equipped with a recent $2.5M FDA contract, ChromaTan is addressing a bottleneck in therapeutic protein production while lowering the cost of goods for biotech and contract manufacturing companies. Through the FDA contract, the company will develop its Continuous Countercurrent Tangential Chromatography (CCTC™), intended to advance the production of antibody therapies by significantly improving product quality and enabling more flexible manufacturing facilities and cost-of-goods reductions. ChromaTan collaborates with Penn State on both bio-purification and cell culturing, working with two world renowned academics in the university’s Chemical Engineering Department, Dr. Zydney and Dr. Curtis. The company will carry out most of its platform development work at its Science Center lab.
InnaMed allows doctors and nurses to take a more intimate, data-driven approach to caring for patients by enabling patients to perform frequent blood tests at home. The company’s first product is a panel of kidney and cardiovascular tests for improving the management of heart failure in elderly patients. By giving patients the ability to do these tests at home, InnaMed aims to provide better diet and exercise control while encouraging adherence to prescriptions and timely follow ups.
Group K Diagnostics is developing a low-cost, paper-based diagnostic system along with an app, providing multiple results from blood and urine samples. With this diagnostic system, blood and urine samples can be tested directly by healthcare providers in just 20 minutes, eliminating the need for providers to send blood work to labs for testing, often a days-long process. Group K Diagnostic’s first clinical trial will kick off this fall at Penn Medicine.
The Port business incubator has helped hundreds of emerging life sciences, physical sciences, and digital technology companies launch and grow by connecting them to business-building programs, clinical resources, investors and advice. The Port also connects its residents to Greater Philadelphia’s diverse and supportive innovation ecosystem. Over the last four years, Port residents have successfully raised more than $250 million in capital.
About the Science Center
Located in the heart of uCity Square, the Science Center is a mission-driven nonprofit organization that catalyzes and connects innovation to entrepreneurship and technology commercialization. For 50+ years, the Science Center has supported startups, research, and economic development in the life sciences, healthcare, physical sciences, and emerging technology sectors. As a result, graduate firms and current residents of the Science Center’s incubator support one out of every 100 jobs in the Greater Philadelphia region and drive $13 billion in economic activity in the region annually. By providing resources and programming for any stage of a business’s lifecycle, the Science Center helps scientists, entrepreneurs and innovators take their concepts from idea to IPO – and beyond.
For more information about the Science Center, go to www.sciencecenter.org
