Celling Biosciences United States

Regeneration Through Innovation

Celling Biosciences is dedicated to researching and developing the future of healing through regenerative medicine and the clinical use of autologous regenerative cells to facilitate the body’s capacity to heal itself. Through our patented Celling therapies and our Institutes of Regenerative Medicine, Celling Biosciences is moving the science of healing forward and redefining the global medical landscape.

Year Founded
2006
Biotech Subsector
Biotech Phase of Development
Medtech Phase of Development
Technology Overview
Regeneration Through Innovation

Celling Biosciences is dedicated to researching and developing the future of healing through regenerative medicine and the clinical use of autologous regenerative cells to facilitate the body’s capacity to heal itself. Through our patented Celling therapies and our Institutes of Regenerative Medicine, Celling Biosciences is moving the science of healing forward and redefining the global medical landscape.

Current Financing Needs

$3-10 million growth capital with opportunity for partial founder buy-out.

Management Team Highlights
Kevin Dunworth

Founder / CEO

Kevin Dunworth, Founder of Celling Biosciences, has spent more than 26 years in the orthopedic industry and brings a wealth of expertise in all aspects of the business. Dunworth has run medical companies in the Middle East, Eastern and Western Europe, and the United States.

He excelled in various executive positions before founding VCD Medical, in Austin, Texas.
For the past eight years, Dunworth has successfully built a world-class distribution business, which provides a variety of orthopedic and biologic products.

Dunworth's leadership roles within the orthopedic industry have included, Director of Emerging Markets and Director of European Sales for Smith & Nephew; Director of International Sales, Vice President of Worldwide Sales and Vice President for FlouroScan International and Vice President of Sales for TransLeasing and Vice President for TransLeasing GE.


Steve Melchiode

President
Steve Melchiode has extensive experience guiding businesses from start-up to profitability. After earning an undergraduate marketing degree followed by a law degree, Melchiode joined a start-up technology firm in Silicon Valley as the West Coast business development director. Melchiode's ability to build and lead successful companies, combined with his experience in medical device sales, provides him with the vision and expertise to lead the Celling Biosciences team. He brings a wide range of experience in sales, business development, marketing, finance, legal and operations management.

Melchiode began his medical device career as a sales representative with VCD Medical, learning the spinal implant industry selling Depuy Spine. After two years spent growing several new territories, Melchiode established himself in a leadership role as sales manager and by running operations for the State of Texas. For the past two years, he has worked with Kevin Dunworth to take the Celling Biosciences model from concept to market, working on business, product and partnership development as well as marketing and operations.

Mr Blair Duncan
Mr Blair Duncan
LinkedIn logo Chief Financial Officer 
BIO

Blair Duncan, Chief Financial Officer, Celling Biosciences

 

Mr. Duncan has over 20 years experience in venture-backed growth companies, as well as Fortune 500 and service firms. Before joining Celling Biosciences, Mr. Duncan was Chief Financial Officer at Emergent Technologies, an early stage life sciences commercialization operator and venture capital firm.  Previously, Mr. Duncan was Chief Financial Officer and Controller at SiteStuff, a leading provider of online procurement services for the commercial real estate industry.  Prior to SiteStuff, Mr. Duncan was Chief Financial Officer for Trillion, a facilities-based provider of wireless broadband telecommunications services to K-12 school districts.  Mr. Duncan also served as Vice President and Controller for ClearSource, a facilities-based provider of broadband telecommunications services.  Mr. Duncan held positions at PricewaterhouseCoopers as Manager of Entrepreneurial Advisory Services, where he launched a new division providing fundraising and business planning consulting services to high-tech companies in Texas, as well as Manager in the Business Assurance practice, where he participated in numerous public offerings and private company audits.  Mr. Duncan started his career with Aetna as a manager of property and casualty underwriting and business development. 

 

Mr. Duncan is a CPA and holds a MBA from the University of Texas at Austin.  He has a BA in Economics and Psychology from Duke University. Mr. Duncan enjoys travel, music, tennis and golf.  He is Career Services Chair of the Financial Executives International – Austin Chapter, as well as Treasurer of the Maya Exploration Center.  He is married with three children and resides in Austin, Texas.

Colorado Institute for Drug Device and Diagnostic Development United States

The Colorado Institute for Drug, Device and Diagnostic Development (CID4) is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit entity committed to economic development through the creation and funding of Colorado Life Science companies. Our goal is to efficiently transform emerging life science innovations into commercial successes. First, we use a rigorous review process and advisory panel to select promising post-proof-of-concept technologies from Colorado’s outstanding research institutions and start-up companies. Second, we fund and actively manage product development while taking an equity position in existing companies and in new companies that we found with the inventors. Third, we facilitate additional seed and/or grant funding to further develop our portfolio companies technologies. By augmenting the value of these innovations, we position our portfolio companies to attract series A financing from venture capitalists and/or partnering opportunities with established pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. We have funded 9 early stage companies since June 2010 and these companies have raised more than $30 million in additional private capital and grant funding.

Website:
www.cid4.com
Year Founded
2009
Biotech Phase of Development
Technology Overview
CID4 has 9 portfolio companies and several project companies that it represents. The companies and technologies are: Sophono (marketed bone anchored hearing device); PeptiVir (pre-clinical stage, peptide-based vaccine platform for influenza, MERS, Ebola, RSV and HIV); Flashback (CipherSensor algorithm for use in medical devices that monitor vital signs); VetDC (FDA approved veterinary oncology product); KromaTiD (molecular diagnostics to detect chromosomal inversion mutations); Aurora Oncology (IND ready bladder cancer therapies); aktiVax (post-protoype, pre-filled syringes and biocompatible vial replacements); Fitbionic (marketed foot prostheses); Sapphire Technologies (post-prototype non-stick dental device for packing composite materials); ApopLogic (phase 1 lung cancer drug; IND-ready targeted biologic for cancer); MenoGeniX (phase 2 menopause hot flash therapy)
Alliance & Collaborations
Colorado Office of Economic Development, Fitzsimons Redevelopment Authority, SBA, Colo. BioSciences Assn., High Country Venture, CU, CSU Ventures
Supporting Metrics or Evidence
Since June 2010: (1) >150 companies reviewed by our technical and business advisory committee; (2) Technology and IP from public research institutions and private companies; (3) $3 million invested in 9 companies (2 started by CID4); (4) Our portfolio companies have raised an additional $30 million in follow-on financing and grants
Current Financing Needs
We are looking for $10 million in philanthropic, angel, corporate and/or venture funding to match $5 million in available State of Colorado ED grant funds
Current Timeline
N/A
Current Investors
Colorado Office of Economic Dev. ($5.1 million), Fitzsimons Redevelopment Authority ($1 million)
IP Status
All of our companies have issued patents
Recent Milestones
Completed our 9th investment.
Management Team Highlights
Our management team has an average of over 30 years in the biotechnology and medical device industry in both start-up and large companies
Richard Duke
Founder & CSO 

Correlation Ventures United States

Correlation Ventures is a venture capital firm that founded in 2010 and is based in San Diego, California with an additional office in Palo Alto, California. The firm currently has approximately $165 million in total assets under management. The firm typically makes investments ranging from $0.25 million to $5 million over the life of the company, and the first investment will be not larger than $2.5 million. The firm’s preferred capital structure is convertible preferred equity or convertible loan. Correlation Ventures will consider invest in any industry segment at any stage, but there must be at least one other venture capital firm making their first investment in the company in this round. The firm only invests in US-based companies. 

Correlation is extremely opportunistic when it comes to investments in the life sciences space; with that being said the firm's specified sectors and sub sectors of interest may or may not be an area in which Correlation Ventures is currently looking to allocate capital to. The firm has made a number of investments in companies in the life sciences space, and has mainly invested in companies in the biotech therapeutics and diagnostics space. The firm's current portfolio includes biotech therapeutics and diagnostics firms developing products targeting endocrine, metabolic, and nutritional diseases, musculoskeletal system and connective tissue, neoplasms, cancer, and oncology, genitourinary system, and infectious and parasitic diseases.

Year Founded
2010
Investor Type
Medtech Phase of Development
Capital Structure Preference
Investment Stage Preference
David Coats
Managing Director 

Cynvenio Biosystems, Inc. United States

Cynvenio has developed a new LiquidBiopsy technology to sequence the DNA of tumor cells isolated from peripheral blood. Key applications include longitudinal patient monitoring throughout the cancer care cycle, the detection of resistance mutations, and providing physicians with accurate molecular evidence to select the best targeted therapy for a given patient.

Cynvenio's technology can be accessed as a CLIA lab service, or  can be installed and operated inside hospital labs and cancer research centers. Cynvenio's lab has been CLIA certified since 2013 and LiquidBiopsy system deployments began in the second half of 2014.

Website:
www.cynvenio.com
Year Founded
2008
Biotech Subsector
Medtech Subsector
Biotech Phase of Development
Technology Overview
Sequencing tumor cells from whole blood
Alliance & Collaborations
Yes, US and International
Supporting Metrics or Evidence
CLIA/CAP accreditation, validations completed, generating revenue
Current Financing Needs
$15M
Current Timeline
Series C raise to scale commercial
Current Investors
Privately funded
IP Status
Core IP has issued
Recent Milestones
4 US deployments, 2 strategics
Management Team Highlights
Amgen, Nortel, Harvard, UCLA, McKinsey
Mr André de Fusco
LinkedIn logo CEO 
Maureen Cullum
CFO 

DavosPharma United States

DavosPharma’s corporate offering covers all the activities required to get a drug from conception to commercialization. DavosPharma has been filling this need since 1972, serving the pharmaceutical and life science market by providing discovery chemistry & biology, pre-clinical development, and all required CMC activities including custom synthesis of organic molecules, custom dosage formulation, and custom manufacturing of cGMP intermediates, APIs, and drug product. 

Gifford Marzoni
Vice-President Global Pharmaceutical Development 
Mike Shore
Director, Global Supply Chain & Technical Operations 

DreamCatcher Ventures United States

  

Tania Fernandez is the founder of Dream Catcher Ventures, an advisory firm founded to address the inefficiencies in the marketplace and to align the goals and aspirations of entrepreneurs with investors in the healthcare/biotech sector. It is focused on creating and building disruptive biotech/healthcare companies that are positioned to excel in global markets. The firm also has a strong focus on biotech companies that have assets/technologies that are relevant to the Indian market.

Dr. Fernandez is currently working with BioHealth Innovation on a $50M “Gap Fund” to invest in seed and early stage healthcare/biotech companies primarily in therapeutics, diagnostics, medtech and healthcare IT.

Tania has a doctorate in molecular oncology and a post doctorate in protein chemistry and genetic engineering. She has over fifteen years of experience in the life sciences and 10 years of venture capital investing experience in biotech/ life sciences/healthcare and healthcare delivery.

Tania Fernandez
Founder 

Excel Venture Management United States

Excel Venture Management is a venture capital firm that was founded in 2008 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts. The firm has managed one fund with committed capital of $125 million, and the firm is currently raising the second fund. Excel Venture Management seeks to make equity investments into life science companies from early to late stages. The typical investment size ranges from $3 million to $ 5million. The firm plans to invest in 4-5 companies over the next 6-9 months and prefers to invest in companies based in US.

Year Founded
2008
Investor Type
Medtech Phase of Development
Capital Structure Preference
Investment Stage Preference
Eric Zimmerman
Kevin Liang

Fusion Genomics Corporation Canada

Fusion Genomics Corp (FG) is a molecular diagnostic test  development company that is introducing diagnostic kits with companion analysis software that offer superior clinical information, faster turn-around-times and ease of use for hospitals and clinical laboratories. Fusion is the first of two companies in the world to bring a validated Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) diagnostic test complete with highly secure cloud based analytical service for childhood cancers (ChildSeq-RNA SRCT) into the clinic. This test was validated in the renowned medical testing facility at the Texas Children Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine.

FG is completing development of kits for facilitating absolute diagnosis of pediatric and adult blood cancers. In addition, FG has partnered with the Royal Tropical Institute (Dutch: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen; KIT) a World Health Organization reference diagnostic laboratory for infectious diseases to design the next generation of assays for the detection of infectious diseases including drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis, influenza, hepatitis and hemorrhagic fevers including Ebola.

Year Founded
2013
Biotech Subsector
Medtech Subsector
Biotech Phase of Development
Medtech Phase of Development
Technology Overview

Fusion Genomics Corporation (FG) develops molecular diagnostic tests that utilize next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies. All of FG’s tests can be used with any of the widely adopted NGS instruments on the market. Data is analyzed using FGF’s secure FusionCloud, providing diagnosis –enabling DNA sequence information to the clinician.

Most NGS based diagnostic efforts can be divided into two categories: 1) whole genome sequencing (WGS), where the entire DNA of an individual (or a pathogen) is sequenced, and 2) target-capture sequencing (TCS), where only diseased portions of DNA are sequenced. TCS produces 1000 times less data than WGS. The expensive computational resources required for analysis of WGS data prevents it from being adopted for routine clinical use. Therefore, TCS is more suitable and appealing in frontline diagnostic environments.

TCS uses either PCR or “DNA baits” as the underlying technology to “capture” disease-specific regions of the genome. PCR-based methods suffer from limitations described earlier. FG uses proprietary Quantum ProbesTM, an enhanced form of DNA baits, in all its tests. Quantum ProbesTM allow for nearly limitless expansion of genetic targets and rapid development of new tests as well as patentable techniques that are beyond the capacity of PCR. The superior advantage of Quantum ProbeTM, coupled with FusionCloud analysis and reporting, will drive the successful adoption of the tests. 

Alliance & Collaborations
Texas Children Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, USA), British Columbia Centre for Disease Control (Vancouver, Canada), Royal Tropical Institute / Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
Supporting Metrics or Evidence

The Fusion Genomics team published a very well received peer-reviewed publication which demonstrated that their technology was more sensitive, accurate, rapid and comprehensive than current industry standards such as PCR and FISH.  This study can be found at here.

Current Financing Needs

 $0.5-1M to complete seed round

Current Investors

Founders, board members, family and friends.

IP Status

Patent applications are pending.

Management Team Highlights

Fusion Genomics Corporation’s team has established expertise in next-generation sequencing, diagnostic test and software development, and information technology.

Mohammed Qadir, PhD., Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer has over 17 years of research experience; the last 10 were at the British Columbia Cancer Agency. As part of his early training, he worked with world-renowned experts in genomics and drug development and is the co-inventor of the ChildSeq assay and ChildDecode.

Greg Stazyk, Chief Technical Officer has over 20 years of experience in senior positions in the IT industry. Mr. Stazyk was the IT lead for one of Canada’s largest bioinformatics computing platform at the BC Cancer Agency’s Genome Sciences Centre (GSC). Mr. Stazyk was the senior manager at PMC-Sierra Inc. responsible for its global computer systems operation.

Brian Kwok, VP of Product Development has close to 10 years of experience in molecular biology and genomic technologies including leading edge next-generation sequencing. Mr. Kwok has worked in combinatorial drug screening and led the development of the ChildSeq assay.

Dr. Poul Sorensen MD, PhD: Board member and clinical expert. Dr. Sorensen is a world-renowned pediatric pathologist and is the Johal Chair in Childhood Cancer Research at the University of British Columbia, as well as a professor in the Department of Pathology and a Senior Scientist at the BC Cancer Research Agency (Vancouver, Canada). Dr. Sorensen is also the Chair of the Translational Research committee of the Children’s Oncology Group.

Mohammed Qadir
Chief Scientific Officer 

Green Park & Golf Ventures

Green Park & Golf Ventures (GPG) is a family office based in Dallas Texas. The firm was founded in 211 and is focused on healthcare companies. The firm makes seed venture and growth stage investments. The firm typically provides seed and Series A equity financing in the range of $1K to $1M per portfolio company. The firm generally acts as the lead investor and is open to invest in syndicates. The firm primarily invests in companies that are based in Texas but is open to opportunities across North America. The firm is actively seeking new investment opportunities.
Clay Heighten
Founding Partner 
JR Garcia
Principal 
Carl Soderstrom
Founding Partner 

Hercules Technology Growth Capital Inc.

Hercules Technology Growth Capital is a Private Equity company founded in 23 Headquartered in Palo Alto California with additional offices in Boston Boulder New York and McLean. The firm manages an evergreen structure and primarily provides high-growth companies in the life science space with senior secured debt financing. The firm can allocate up to $5 million per investment. The firm is very flexible with deal structures that can be customized to help companies reach their key milestones. The firm primarily invests in companies headquartered in the US but has the ability to invest overseas as well.
Janice Borque
Managing Director Life Sciences