Year: 2018

“We’re honored by this award, which affirms our focus on making real business impact with machine learning,” Robbie Allen, CEO at Infinia ML said to PRNewswire. “We’re especially grateful to our clients, whose data and domain expertise make our work possible. Their trust empowers us to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and achieve new breakthroughs.”

AI Breakthrough Awards was started in order to recognize the excellence in innovation for top companies and technologies within the AI industry. This year, over 2,500 nominations came in from 15+ different countries worldwide.

Machine learning is the science of teaching a computer to think as humans do while improving over time with the addition of more data and information. Machine learning algorithms have been around for a long time.  In fact, Arthur Samuel coined the phase in 1959.  However, the big leap forward is being able to quickly apply difficult mathematical calculations to big data.

About Infinia ML

Infinia ML is a team of advanced machine learning experts focused on making business impact. The company helps enterprise clients reduce costs, increase efficiency, and achieve breakthroughs with data science. Infinia ML serves industries from manufacturing and healthcare to marketing and human resources. The company’s capabilities include natural language processing, recommendation engines, object detection, 3D image modeling, and anomaly detection.

The Durham, North Carolina company is led by CEO Robbie Allen, an experienced AI entrepreneur, Chief Scientist Lawrence Carin, Ph.D., one of the world’s most published machine learning experts and Duke University’s Vice Provost for Research, and Executive Chairman and Carrick Capital Partners Managing Director Mike Salvino. Together, the Infinia ML team has produced 31 patents, 11 books, 7 Ph.D.s, and more than 575 published papers.

About AI Breakthrough

Part of the Tech Breakthrough Awards organization, the AI Breakthrough Awards program is devoted to honoring excellence in Artificial Intelligence technologies, services, companies and products. The AI Breakthrough Awards provide public recognition for the achievements of AI companies and products in categories including AI Platforms, Robotics, Business Intelligence, AI Hardware, NLP, Vision, Biometrics, industry vertical AI applications and more. For more information visit www.AIBreakthroughAwards.com

The financing was led by ArrowMark Partners and was joined by new investors Franklin Templeton Investments, Cowen Healthcare Investments, Brace Pharma Capital, Pontifax AgTech, OCV Partners, Adage Capital Management, Cormorant Asset Management, Gilead Sciences, Vivo Capital, Alexandria Venture Investments, Ridgeback Capital, Agent Capital, and entities affiliated with Leerink Partners. Existing investors venBio, F-Prime, RA Capital Management, Amgen Ventures, Osage University Partners, DUMAC, and the Longevity Fund also participated in the financing.

Precision intends to expand applications of its ARCUS genome editing platform in the areas of immuno-oncology, genetic disease, and food on its way to building a fully integrated biotechnology company. ARCUS is Precision’s proprietary, homing endonuclease-derived genome editing platform that leverages the small size and high specificity of a natural genome editing system. During 2018, Precision plans to utilize the proceeds from this financing to accelerate and expand its product portfolio. Specifically, Precision targets taking its lead, off-the-shelf CAR-T product into the clinic while advancing both its lead in vivo gene therapy program into IND-enabling studies and its flagship food program into field trials.

“We are thrilled to have such strong support from these leading healthcare investors who share in our vision for the future of human health through innovations in food and medicine,” said Matt Kane, CEO of Precision. “This financing provides us with a strong foundation from which we can advance our translational genome editing programs in multiple sectors.”

In conjunction with the Series B financing, Tony Yao of ArrowMark Partners has joined the Precision Board of Directors alongside existing directors Matt Kane, Derek Jantz, CSO of Precision, and Robert Adelman of venBio.

“We believe that Precision’s core gene editing technology represents a new way to alter the genome, and we are utilizing this technology to address several areas of great unmet need,” said Tony Yao, M.D., Ph.D. “I look forward to working with the team as we advance our programs.”

About Precision BioSciences

At Precision, we utilize a proprietary genome editing method we call ARCUS combined with a team made up of some of the leading minds and pioneers in genome editing in an effort to overcome cancers, cure genetic diseases, and enable the development of safer, more productive food sources.

The enzyme replacement therapy (ERT), developed using foundational research from Duke, was heralded as a breakthrough for an orphan disease in 2006, and was dramatized in the major motion picture “Extraordinary Measures.”

“But not everyone responds to this treatment,” Koeberl said. “Many patients make some antibodies, and this can really interfere with treatment. Some infants still die from Pompe disease. Others have to add immune suppression to their treatment, which can lead to other complications. Gene therapy could help these patients.”

In the research published in 2017, the Duke-led research team found that a single small dose of gene therapy was as effective as ERT in clearing the buildup of glycogen from the muscles in mice. A larger dose offered superior results to ERT.

A single treatment spurred the liver to continuously produce GAA without additional treatment, the study authors said. Enzyme therapy requires infusions two to four times a month to lower glycogen levels in the muscles.

Unlike ERT, the gene therapy doesn’t trigger an immune response, a reaction that can limit successful treatment in about half of babies with Pompe. In fact, the gene therapy appeared to reverse immune responses in mice that had previously developed antibodies in response to enzyme replacement, Koeberl said.

The gene therapy uses an inactivated form of adeno-associated virus, which does not cause illness and has been used as a delivery system for hemophilia B and muscular dystrophy treatments, among others, Koeberl said.

Under Rob Hallford, Duke New Ventures developed several new strategies to vet faculty and staff inventions and support their development into spinoff companies.  One of those new strategies was hiring five MIRs—seasoned entrepreneurs who have successfully raised capital for, built, sold, or invested in start-up companies.

“What we’ve recruited for in our MIRs is a diverse set of experiences and expertise to help our faculty across multiple technology and industry sectors.  But more than that, we’ve been able to find entrepreneurs with an energy for engaging with and building out Duke’s entrepreneurial community,” Hallford said.

MIRs have spent their careers building deep industry relationships. As such, they are matched with innovators within the same industry to help them move their ideas to the market.  An MIR not only helps the faculty or staff member develop their company plan such that introductions can be made to potential investors, management and partners, but they also help cultivate those connections.

“As a clinician and scientist, I’m adept at thinking about how products we develop may fit in the lives of patients and their caregivers.  But an important gap in my knowledge and comfort is understanding product/market fit from a business development perspective,” said Arif Kamal, Associate Professor of Medicine and co-founder of the mobile health platform Prepped Health.

The goal of the clinical trial is to perform a non-inferiority study of its drug-device combination using hyperpolarised 129-Xenon (129Xe) gas MRI, against 133-Xenon (133Xe) scintigraphy. The theory is that this method is more accurate and less harmful than current methods. They will be evaluating a total of 80 patients with lung lobe resection and lung transplant procedures. The Phase III trial will be conducted at Duke University and the University of Virginia.

When used in conjunction with MRI, these gases offer a fundamentally new and non-invasive functional imaging platform. Additionally, xenon gas exhibits solubility and signal properties that enable it to be imaged within other tissues and organs.

Polarean, spun out of Dr. Bastiann Driehuys and Gary Cofer’s technology from the School of Medicine, launched their start-up in 2014.

In the early 90s, Oxaal worked with Professor Olaf von Ram to help form Volumetrics Medical Imaging, which developed the first real-time 3-D ultrasound machine. Oxaal stayed with Volumetrics until ’99 before moving to the west coast to work at Sevin Rosen Funds as a venture capitalist.

“I knew John would be an excellent candidate to help expand BME’s knowledge and technology,” Chilkoti said. “As a Duke BME alum, and with previous Duke start-up experience, I knew he could guide us through the process of transferring BME’s innovative research to the market.”

Soon after taking on his position as an EIR, Oxaal landed on the gene editing research of Professor Charles Gersbach and his colleagues Greg Crawford, Tim Reddy, and Kris Wood.

In 2015, through his role as the Duke BME EIR, Oxaal helped Gersbach, et al. found Element Genomics, a Duke startup developing a suite of technologies for understanding gene regulatory elements, such as CRISPR gene editing technologies, to identify new drug targets for common diseases. Oxaal would later become the CEO of Element.

“As academics interested in translating our work to the biotech industry, it was critical to have a veteran entrepreneur like John to guide us through the unfamiliar territory of founding a company, licensing technology, and setting up operations outside of a university,” Professor Gersbach said of Pratt’s EIR. “Another critical factor to making this all possible was the incredible responsiveness we received from Duke’s OLV. They were diligent in every step of the process from protecting and managing the IP to participating in final license and contract discussions.”

The Element founders also received funding from the Coulter Foundation Translational Partnership Program at Duke that provides $1 million in early-stage funding and management to faculty health care innovations annually with a goal of licensing and creating new life science start-up companies.

The Coulter Foundation is directed by veteran entrepreneur Professor Barry Myers. Myers saw much potential in the Element team and pushed hard to get them to move forward with their idea.

About kēlaHealth

kēlaHealth is a software-as-service health informatics company founded by a team of surgeons, statisticians, and engineers that uses machine learning for predicting complications during surgery. Through rigorous data analysis, kēlaHealth delivers precision medicine by leveraging data from millions of patients, standardizing surgeon variability, and addressing administrative and regulatory needs for quality compliance in surgical care.