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The University of Tennessee Research Foundation has selected Orion Therapeutics as the first recipient of its $5 million fund to support startups that bring research from the university’s labs to the market.
Orion is developing a new way to deliver drugs that use ribonucleic acid, or RNA, to new places in the body. RNA, the single-strand cousin of DNA, is increasingly used in medicines and vaccines to treat conditions ranging from muscular dystrophy to COVID-19.
Orion’s technology focuses on vascular diseases, such as dangerous buildup of plaque in arteries. It was founded in 2022 by a UT medical professor and her former graduate student.
The company will receive $300,000, given evenly by the UT Research Foundation and Launch Tennessee, a statewide nonprofit that supports tech startups.
The UT Research Foundation’s Accelerate Fund was created in 2023 to support companies that sign license agreements to commercialize university research. UT System President Randy Boyd authorized its initial $5 million in funding.
“I cherish our relationship with UTRF. We’ve worked with the organization for a decade − initially as an inventor and now as the first investment from UTRF’s Accelerate Fund,” Trey Fisher, CEO and founder of Orion, said in a news release. “I wear this current development as a badge of honor.”
Fisher wanted to keep Orion in Knoxville as an example for other biotech companies of the healthy local ecosystem that supports startups. His company will use the money to reach key milestones before it moves on to its first official round of raising money from investors.
How University of Tennessee supports tech startups
Investments from the Accelerate Fund range from $20,000 to $150,000. While the ideas must come from UT, startup founders do not have to be based at the university.
Orion is a participant in the Spark Incubator Program, housed at the Institute for Advanced Materials and Manufacturing at UT Research Park.The company signed a licensing agreement for the drug technology with UT Research Foundation and a lease agreement for lab space at the park.
“Accelerate Fund’s mission is to invest in great UT innovations,” UT Research Foundation President Maha Krishnamurthy said in a release. “We invest in good companies across the country that other investors will want to follow. We’ve been working with Orion Therapeutics and Trey Fisher for many years. This investment is the latest chapter in our long-standing partnership.”
The nonprofit operates separately from UT, though its mission is to promote economic development by commercializing the university’s intellectual property. Its technology transfer from lab to market is similar to how Oak Ridge National Laboratory licenses its breakthroughs to private companies, often small tech startups.
Orion Therapeutics has ‘limitless potential’ for drugs, vaccines
Orion was co-founded by Deidra Mountain, the company’s director of vascular therapeutics pipeline and a professor at the UT Graduate School of Medicine, and Fisher, who developed the company’s technology as a graduate student.
Its innovative approach to delivering medicines to the right place in the body uses a tiny nanoparticle that forms a bubble-like structure around RNA genetic material. In the delivery metaphor, the particle packages and ships the RNA for safe use in humans.
The nanoparticle system has “limitless potential” in drugs and vaccines, according to the company. Orion’s breakthrough is its versatility, since its technology can adapt to many forms of RNA for treatment of many diseases across the body.
Daniel Dassow is a growth and development reporter focused on technology and energy. Phone 423-637-0878. Email daniel.dassow@knoxnews.com.
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