Discoveries At NJIT Including Drug To Stop Brain Injury Receives $1.4M Funding

Main Category: Neurology / Neuroscience
Also Included In: Biology / Biochemistry;  IT / Internet / E-mail;  Heart Disease
Article Date: 13 Nov 2009 - 5:00 PST

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A drug to stop bleeding during a brain injury and a mattress that will prevent bedsores are among the scientific discoveries at NJIT that received earlier this week more than a million dollars in funding from the New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology. The discoveries are the work of five early stage companies based at NJIT's Enterprise Development Center (EDC), the state's oldest business incubator program.

EDC, which is home to 95 new companies, received a $300,000 grant from the Commission, the largest award given to any organization of this kind in New Jersey. The money will go toward maintaining and supplementing EDC's unique specialized training initiatives and other programs made available to tenant companies on a weekly basis.

"We will receive this year a total of almost $1.4 million from the Commission to strengthen both our most promising companies as well as our actual programs which help companies succeed," said Judith Sheft, associate vice president, technology development.

"Support from the Commission to these early stage companies in a variety of technology disciplines will help them accelerate their path to success and ultimately add to job growth in the state. A recent study from the Kauffman Foundation shows that newly created and young companies such as these are the primary drivers of job creation in the United States. "

The following five companies received awards from the Commission.

• Edge Therapeutics Inc., a recipient of $500,000, has three drugs to treat serious types of brain injury. The drugs are based on a patent-pending drug delivery platform technology that provides for targeted, site specific delivery to the brain of FDA-approved off-patent drugs.
  
  
• Phoenix Labs, LLC, a recipient of $250,000, has developed and validated a patent-pending algorithm for precision-timing synchronization. Precision-timing synchronization is essential for the evolution of 3G and 4G wireless networks that will account for the most substantial growth in telecommunications industry revenue over the next decade.
  
  
• Simphotek, Inc, a recipient of $250,000, is developing simulation software for biomedical, nanotechnology, renewable energy and photonic materials markets.
  
  
• Healthy Functions received a $50,000 fellowship for the development of a mechanical pressure reduction mattress. This mattress will prevent pressure ulcers or bedsores on bedridden, comatose, paraplegic, and other patients who are neuro-muscularly disabled.
  
  
• AcquiSci Inc received $21,936 fellowship to develop a systemic anti-inflammatory treatment of cardiovascular diseases with underlying inflammation.

Source: Sheryl Weinstein
New Jersey Institute of Technology