Penn Center for Innovation

In July, the company announced that the FDA cleared an investigational new drug (IND) application for their lead product candidate, CT-0508, an anti-human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) targeted chimeric antigen receptor macrophage (CAR-M). Steven Kelly, President and CEO commented on this pivotal milestone, “this will be the first time that an engineered macrophage has progressed successfully to the in-patient study phase and represents a new chapter for Carisma: advancing from a preclinical discovery-stage company to a clinical development stage company.” Just before the new year, Carisma completed the first close of its Series B funding with $48 million of new capital which will be used to advance the development and support the evaluation of novel CAR-Macrophage Immunotherapies.

Led by CEO Thomas Kim, EpiVario overcame the challenges of 2020 and had many notable accomplishments. The company entered into an Option Agreement with the University of Penn to in-license Alzheimer’s technology using novel epigenetic markers discovered by co-founder Dr. Shelley Berger. In June of 2020, EpiVario was selected as one of twelve finalists for Nature's inaugural Spinoff Prize. Epivario successfully raised an additional $112.5K in their Seed offering, which brought the total funds raised to $717K. The additional funding will be used to advance the company’s addiction therapy research, and to explore opportunities in the area of memory-related disorders.

In March, the company was announced as a finalist for the SXSW Innovation Award in AI and Machine Learning. Later in the year, the Philadelphia based startup teamed up with their neighbors at Dock Street Brewery to create the world’s first-known drone-assisted brewing operation. Exyn’s Chief Dog Officer, Kody assisted in another ‘first’ for the company, First Dog to Fly a Drone, that is. The video was heartwarming during a time when everyone was in need of a smile and, as Forbes contributor David Hambling pointed out, it presented “a serious message about the rapid evolution of drone autonomy.” Finally, Exyn capped off the year by executing a major partnership with Sandvik, the world’s leader in mining automation. With the challenges of 2020 behind them, the Exyn team plans to build on its partnerships and solidify its position as the world leader in autonomous flying robots.

In 2020, the company completed its first integrated prototype and advanced the first product for Direct Oral Anticoagulant (DOAC) bleeding risk detection, demonstrating the ability to detect DOAC-inhibited clotting, reversal agent activity, and sensitivity/specificity around DOAC levels. The company was also awarded a $251K SBIR Phase I grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to expand the platform to neonate platelet function testing. To round out the year, FloBio received a $256K SBIR Phase I award from the National Science Foundation (NSF), and an investment from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania, in support of advancing device design, manufacturing, and product development.

In September, Ghost Robotics was featured on CNN after their Vision 60 prototypes were used during a US military, Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS) exercise at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. By December, the robot dogs were deployed at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, which is the first base in the U.S. to integrate the robots full time. The high-tech canines will patrol the base, replacing stationary security cameras and allow defenders to focus on training, security and overall situational awareness across the base. In addition to working with the military in 2020, Ghost Robotics also had the opportunity to participate in 5G Studio at Newlab - a newly launched program presented by Verizon and Newlab- which enables startups, including Ghost Robotics and Exyn Technologies, to leverage Verizon 5G to transform industries like industrial automation, energy, and more. The company designs robots that "feel the world", able to stay balanced regardless of terrain - and Ghost Robotics has embodied that this year, by displaying their own stability and adaptability during a time full of extremely challenging terrain.

In June of 2020, the FDA granted Fast Track designation for the company’s lead product candidate, LNS8801, for the treatment of patients with metastatic or unresectable melanoma who have progressed on or after anti-programmed cell death receptor or ligand therapy. LNS8801 is a first-in-class, orally bioavailable small molecule that is a highly specific and potent agonist of the G-protein estrogen receptor (GPER). October brought a momentous milestone for Linnaeus, as the first patient was dosed in their phase I/II adaptive-design clinical trial of its lead-product-candidate, LNS8801, in combination with KEYTRUDA® (pembrolizumab), in patients who had previous clinical benefit from immune checkpoint inhibitors and then subsequently progressed. Patrick Mooney, MD, CEO of Linnaeus said, “We believe that LNS8801 with pembrolizumab has the potential to provide meaningful clinical benefit for patients with cancer, and we look forward to providing updates over the course of the study.” Over the next year Linnaeus plans to open more phase II clinical trials exploring LNS8801 activity as a monotherapy and in combination with other compounds in defined patient populations.

Joe Camaratta, CEO of QRS, was featured on an episode of Money Matters, where he talked about the company's unique Automatic Anatomy Recognition (AAR) software that can recognize and delineate anatomical objects and diseased tissue in multiple body regions in MRI, CT, and PET/CT images. QRS was awarded an additional $252K STTR grant from National Cancer Institute (NCI) to expand AAR to disease quantification. In October, the company completed a 214 patient clinical evaluation of AAR at 4 academic medical centers, and submitted their first product for FDA 510K clearance in December. A major milestone for the entire QRS team!