Houston organizations announce 10 most promising life science startups

future of health care

Houston's medical innovation community congregated to discuss breakthrough innovations in health care. Photo via Getty Images

What startups are creating the future of health care? A Houston conference this week gathered to discuss.

The 10th annual Texas Life Science Forum hosted by BioHouston and the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship engaged thought leadership within the life science community with panels, discussions, and more. Additionally, 49 companies pitched their solutions across medical device, therapeutics, pharmaceuticals, and more to the crowd.

Austin-based Dynamic Light won the Michael E. DeBakey Memorial Life Science Award, established by BioHouston in honor of the groundbreaking Houston cardiovascular surgeon. The software company integrates with microscope or robotic systems to provide better visuals to surgeons and health care providers and reduce medical errors, radiation and costs. The award was presented by Ann Tanabe, CEO of BioHouston.

The event also named the 10 most promising life science companies selected by investors and presented by the Greater Houston Partnership. This year's selection included the following companies, in alphabetical order.

Ares Immunotherapy

Photo via Getty Images

Based in Cartersville, Georgia, Ares Immunotherapy uses a unique subset of T-cells for the treatment of solid tumors. According to the company, it is is preparing for a first in man trial in mesothelioma in 2023.

Corveus Medical

Photo courtesy of TMC

Houston-based Corveus Medical, which was formerly known as Caridian Medical, is a part of TMC's Biodesign program. The company was founded by Ishan Kamat, COO, and Tyler Melton, CEO.

"We are developing a novel, catheter-based device that performs a targeted sympathetic nerve ablation to treat heart failure," according to the company. "Our solution leverages the body’s natural mechanisms to bring fluid levels back to normal, giving physicians an effective treatment option, reducing costs for hospitals, and improving quality of life for the patient."

Drusolv Therapeutics

Photo via Pexels

Drusolv Therapeutics, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was founded out of Harvard University and been validated in a proof-of-concept clinical trial. The company's product, a novel reformulation of atorvastatin, is targeting age-related macular degeneration, or AMD, a serious eye disease. According to the company, it's a $4 billion a year, unmet need.

EMPIRI

Photo via jlabs.jnjinnovation.com

Houston-based EMPIRI is an early-stage biotechnology company currently focusing on precision oncology and utilizing automation for personal diagnosis. The company works out of JLABS @ TMC.

"Our proprietary 3D tissue culture method, E-slices, enables personalized drug response measurements from intact patient tissues," per the company. "E-slice has been clinically validated to accurately predict individual cancer patient responses to chemotherapies, targeted therapies, a immunotherapies."

Lapovations

Photo via Getty Images

Based in Fayetteville, Arkansas, Lapovations is working on technologies that improve laparoscopy.

"Our flagship product AbGrab is a single-use device that uses suction to lift the abdominal wall prior to closed insertion entry," according to the company. "Manually lifting can be difficult and unreliable, especially with obese patients or for clinicians with small hands."

Maxwell Biosciences

Photo by Chokniti Khongchum from Pexels

Austin-based Maxwell Biosciences is creating anti-infectives that inactivate a broad spectrum of viruses. The company's product, CLAROMERS, has seen success in its preclinical animal studies, as well as lab-grown human tissues. Maxwell is fueled by over $30 million in non-dilutive and government funding (e.g. DARPA, NIH, NIAID).

NeuraStasis

Image via neurastasis.com

Doctors have to respond quickly when treating ischemic stroke patients, and Houston-based NeuraStasis is working on a way to give them more time. Each minute a patient is waiting, irreparable damage is being done. The company's noninvasive solution uses electrical neurostimulation to preserve brain functionality. NeuraStasis is based in JLABS @ TMC.

Vena Medical

Image via venamed.ca

Canada medical device company Vena Medical is working on the "world's smallest camera" that is able to record inside veins and arteries to help physicians treat stroke.

Vivifi Medical

Photo courtesy of TMC

Houston-based Vivifi Medical, a Texas Medical Center Innovation company, is working to improve the quality of life of patients with Male Infertility and benign prostatic hyperplasia — 12 million men in the United States alone — by ending recurrency via suture-less laparoscopic technology.

XN Health

Image via xn-health.com

XN Health, based in Houston, has developed a novel approach to phrenic nerve stimulation to treat progression of ventilator induced diaphragm disfunction to help wean patients off the ventilator faster. The technology should speed up patient liberation times, shortening ICU stay, improve healthcare outcomes, and reduce health care costs.

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Houston climatetech startup raises $21.5M series A to grow robotics solution

seeing green

A Houston energy tech startup has raised a $21.5 million series a round of funding to support the advancement of its automated technology that converts field wastes into stable carbon.

Applied Carbon, previously known as Climate Robotics, announced that its fresh round of funding was led by TO VC, with participation from Congruent Ventures, Grantham Foundation, Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, S2G Ventures, Overture.vc, Wireframe Ventures, Autodesk Foundation, Anglo American, Susquehanna Foundation, US Endowment for Forestry and Communities, TELUS Pollinator Fund for Good, and Elemental Excelerator.

The series A funding will support the deployment of its biochar machines across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana.

"Multiple independent studies indicate that converting crop waste into biochar has the potential to remove gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere each year, while creating trillions of dollars in value for the world's farmers," Jason Aramburu, co-founder and CEO of Applied Carbon, says in a news release. "However, there is no commercially available technology to convert these wastes at low cost.

"Applied Carbon's patented in-field biochar production system is the first solution that can convert crop waste into biochar at a scale and a cost that makes sense for broad acre farming," he continues.

Applied Carbon rebranded in June shortly after being named a top 20 finalist in XPRIZE's four-year, $100 million global Carbon Removal Competition. The company also was named a semi-finalist and awarded $50,000 from the Department of Energy's Carbon Dioxide Removal Purchase Pilot Prize program in May.

"Up to one-third of excess CO2 that has accumulated in the atmosphere since the start of human civilization has come from humans disturbing soil through agriculture," Joshua Phitoussi, co-founder and managing partner at TO VC, adds. "To reach our net-zero objectives, we need to put that carbon back where it belongs.

"Biochar is unique in its potential to do so at a permanence and price point that are conducive to mass-scale adoption of carbon dioxide removal solutions, while also leaving farmers and consumers better off thanks to better soil health and nutrition," he continues. "Thanks to its technology and business model, Applied Carbon is the only company that turns that potential into reality."

The company's robotic technology works in field, picking up agricultural crop residue following harvesting and converts it into biochar in a single pass. The benefits included increasing soil health, improving agronomic productivity, and reducing lime and fertilizer requirements, while also providing a carbon removal and storage solution.

"We've been looking at the biochar sector for over a decade and Applied Carbon's in-field proposition is incredibly compelling," adds Joshua Posamentier, co-founder and managing partner of Congruent Ventures. "The two most exciting things about this approach are that it profitably swings the agricultural sector from carbon positive to carbon negative and that it can get to world-scale impact, on a meaningful timeline, while saving farmers money."

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

Rice University makes top 5 lists of best biz schools in the country

top ranking

MBA programs at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business have landed two top five rankings in The Princeton Review’s annual list of the country’s best business schools.

Rice earned a No. 4 ranking for its online MBA program and a No. 5 ranking for its MBA program in finance.

“These rankings are indicative of the high-quality education offered through all of our MBA programs. Students studying finance at Rice … are taught by faculty whose research and expertise enhances core classes and hard skills, so students are not just prepared to be successful in their careers, but they are also prepared to think critically about their roles and to lead in their industry,” Peter Rodriguez, dean of the Jones Graduate School of Business, says in a news release.

“These rankings are also indicative of our broader approach: offering students flexibility in their pursuit of an MBA, while retaining the experience of studying with world-class faculty — no matter what program they choose,” Rodriguez adds.

Rice also achieved high rankings in two other MBA categories: No. 8 for “greatest resources for women” and No. 10 for “greatest resources for minority students.”

The Princeton Review’s 2024 business school rankings are based on data from surveys of administrators at more than 400 business schools as well as surveys of 32,200 students enrolled in the schools’ MBA programs.

“The schools that made our list for 2024 all have impressive individual distinctions,” Rob Franek, The Princeton Review’s editor-in-chief, says in a news release. “What they share are three characteristics that broadly informed our criteria for these rankings: outstanding academics, robust experiential learning components and excellent career services.”

Rice also ranks as the top school for graduate entrepreneurship programs, which Princeton Review released last fall. The University of Houston ranks as No. 1 for undergraduate entrepreneurship programs.

3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

Editor's note: Every week, I introduce you to a handful of Houston innovators to know recently making headlines with news of innovative technology, investment activity, and more. This week's batch includes a Houston chemist, a cleaning product founder, and a UH researcher.


James Tour, chemist at Rice University

The four-year agreement will support the team’s ongoing work on removing PFAS from soil. Photo via Rice University

A Rice University chemist James Tour has secured a new $12 million cooperative agreement with the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center on the team’s work to efficiently remove pollutants from soil.

The four-year agreement will support the team’s ongoing work on removing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from contaminated soil through its rapid electrothermal mineralization (REM) process, according to a statement from Rice.

“This is a substantial improvement over previous methods, which often suffer from high energy and water consumption, limited efficiency and often require the soil to be removed,” Tour says. Read more.

Kristy Phillips, founder and CEO of Clean Habits

What started as a way to bring natural cleaning products in from overseas has turned into a promising application for more sustainable agriculture solutions. Photo via LinkedIn

When something is declared clean, one question invariably springs to mind: just how clean is clean?

Then it is, “What metrics decide what’s clean and what’s not?”

To answer those questions, one must abandon the subjective and delve into the scientific — and that’s where Clean Habits come in. The company has science on its side with Synbio, a patented cleaning formula that combines a unique blend of prebiotics and probiotics for their signature five-day clean.

“Actually, we are a synbiotic, which is a prebiotic and a probiotic fused together,” says Kristy Phillips, founder and CEO of Clean Habits. “And that's what gives us the five-day clean, and we also have the longest shelf life — three years — of any probiotic on the market.” Read more.

Jiming Bao, professor at University of Houston

Th innovative method involves techniques that will be used to measure and visualize temperature distributions without direct contact with the subject being photographed. Photo via UH.edu

A University of Houston professor of electrical and computer engineering, Jiming Bao, is improving thermal imaging and infrared thermography with a new method to measure the continuous spectrum of light.

His innovative method involves techniques that will be used to measure and visualize temperature distributions without direct contact with the subject being photographed, according to the university. The challenges generally faced by conventional thermal imaging is addressed, as the new study hopes to eliminate temperature dependence, and wavelength.

“We designed a technique using a near-infrared spectrometer to measure the continuous spectrum and fit it using the ideal blackbody radiation formula,” Bao tells the journal Device. “This technique includes a simple calibration step to eliminate temperature- and wavelength-dependent emissivity.” Read more.

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