University of Virginia Health System

U.Va. Forms New Medical Company with New York Venture Capitalists

Athena Ventures L.L.C., signed an agreement with U.Va. on Wednesday, May 6, in Charlottesville to form ErythroMed Inc. Other equity partners include two U.Va. researchers and Neil Bush, a Texas entrepreneur and son of former President George Bush.

The new company will support the research of Ronald P. Taylor, professor of biochemistry at U.Va. Taylor's research has significant implications for the treatment of a host of bacterial and viral infections and may also be applicable to autoimmune diseases. The work is being conducted in collaboration with William Sutherland, professor of research in cell biology and associate director of the Lymphocyte Culture Center at U.Va.

This is the most exciting project I've ever worked on because it involves platform technology with a wide variety of potential therapeutic applications, said Jeff Wolf, director of Athena Ventures and an active venture capitalist for the past decade.

ErythroMed expects to invest several million dollars in the U.Va. research over the next two years, Wolf said. His firm competed with some of the country's largest pharmaceutical companies for the rights to license the technology and won because of its exclusive focus on furthering research into the patented technology and developing new products from it.

The agreement with arranged with the assistance of University of Virginia Patent Foundation Director Robert MacWright.

Taylor's work involves creating chemical hooks that can be hung on red blood cells to remove bacteria and viruses from the bloodstream and send the diseases to the liver and spleen to be destroyed. The hooks can be altered to work with different pathogens.

Taylor's research has established that a receptor on the surface of red blood cells, called CR1, plays a key role in removing pathogens. Taylor and his research team have developed a chemical complex that connects to both the CR1 receptor and to antigenic sites on pathogens.

They have shown that the technique cleared substantial quantities of a virus from the blood of animal models. Imaging studies indicated the virus was cleared to the liver, where it was destroyed and eliminated from the body. Research based on in vitro data was first published in 1991 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science; later, more significant research based on in vivo studies was published in the Journal of Immunology in 1997.

Because of the technology's potential for combating biological weapons, the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been actively supporting Taylor's research. Last year, DARPA awarded Taylor the 1997 Award for Significant Technical Achievement for his research in the field.

Wolf will serve as president and chief executive officer of the new company, which initially will maintain its financial operations in New York while research activities continue in Charlottesville. An Athena colleague, Jeff Himawan, who holds a doctorate in biochemistry, will serve as ErythroMed's director of scientific operations.

May 11, 1998