Yale BioHaven Entrepreneurship Seminars Begin with TheraLogics: "Starting a Drug Development Venture Without Venture Capital"

The Yale BioHaven Entrepreneurship Seminars series begins its fall schedule on Wednesday, September 20 from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in the Anlyan Center Auditorium of Yale Medical School, 300 Cedar Street.

This program will feature TheraLogics, Inc., a local technology start-up company that is unusual because it has not received — and is not seeking — venture capital investment. Rather, it is funded through licensing agreements of technology previously developed by one company co-founder and molecular inhibitors developed by another co-founder. TheraLogics also anticipates participating in a non-profit foundation as a potential source of research revenue.

Speakers will be Max Wallace., the C.E.O. of TheraLogics and former C.E.O. of Trimeris Pharmaceuticals; and Sankar Ghosh, professor of immunobiology, and molecular biophysics & biochemistry at Yale University and co-founder of TheraLogics.

Many major human diseases, including arthritis, asthma, colitis, and cancer can be attributed to problems related to regulation of the transcription factor NF-kB. The goal of TheraLogics is to develop effective inhibitors of NF-kB and to bring these drugs into the clinical arena by establishing a network of investigators in academia and biopharm, who are each focusing on one of the major NF-kB–relevant target diseases.

Wallace and Ghosh will discuss how they have managed to move from basic research to applying a technology rapidly, even though TheraLogics has yet to make itself visible on the web or with a physical research facility. .Their intention is to show potential academic founders and entrepreneurs a new model for translating technologies.

Refreshments and networking will follow the seminar from 5 to 7 p.m. Registration is free, but advance RSVP to Larry Banks or the Yale Office of Cooperative Research at 203-436-8096 is required. Directions to the event are available on line.

Yale BioHaven Entrepreneurship Seminars are sponsored jointly by the Yale Office of Cooperative Research and Connecticut United for Research Excellence (CURE), Yale Entrepreneurial Society (YES), and Yale Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical Society (YBPS). For further information on the seminar, please email Tracy Huang or call 203-785-3846.

The Branford company, 454, will be featured in the next seminar of the Yale-Bio Haven series on November 8