Health-care startups with their roots at UWMadison have boosted the Wisconsin economy and helped improve patients lives. Photo: Bryce Richter

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Five innovative University of WisconsinMadison startups are leveraging scientific research to provide new insights into medicine and treatments, which improves peoples lives and boosts Wisconsins economy.

Starting a research-based company is hard work and it can take years to get established. Here at UWMadison theres increasing support to help innovators on their journey from concept to commercialization, says Discovery to Product (D2P) director Andy Richards. These five startups combined their passion and persistence with D2P and other campus resources to further their ideas to benefit society.

As these early-stage companies continue to grow, theyre creating high-paying scientific and professional jobs in Wisconsin. Theyre also contributing to the states economy by attracting venture capital investment and other funding.

From new methods for drug development to personalizing tumor treatment, here are five startups changing how we experience healthcare:

The idea for Ayrflo was born out of the lab of co-founder Guelay Bilen-Rosas in the UWMadison Department of Anesthesiology. The team is developing a new way of monitoring breathing patterns in patients who are breathing spontaneously recovering from surgery or receiving ongoing sedation, both of which make them vulnerable for respiratory complications. This respiratory monitoring deviceprovides real-time breathing metricsby measuring airflow velocities across the windpipe, immediately detecting changes in breathing. Typical fingertip reading methods can have a devastating lag timein warning about the downstream onset of oxygen deprivation. Real-time monitoring provides critical extra time for medical professionals to address problems and save lives.

Founders: Guelay Bilen-Rosas, Irene Ong, Humberto RosasYear: 2020

UWMadison Connection: School of Medicine and Public Health

The AIQSolutions medical device software platform is built on technology invented at UWMadison by faculty at the Carbone Cancer Center, and the School of Medicine and Public Healths Oncology and Medical Physics departments. The company helps doctors better understand and predict a patients response to treatment for complex diseases such as cancer. The technology usesadvanced algorithms,includingartificial intelligenceto analyze radiology images to create a detailed map of how each area in the body responds to treatment. Physicians are using AIQs product to improve patient outcomes and decreasehealthcarecosts at hospitals, including UW Health.

Founders: Dona Alberti (COO), Robert Jeraj (CSO), Glenn Liu (CMO), Guy Starbuck (CTO)

Year: 2015

Employees: 28

UWMadison Connection: School of Medicine and Public Health

Su-Chun Zhang UW Health / John Maniaci

BrainXell is based on technology developed in the lab of co-founder Su-Chun Zhang, a professor of neuroscience and neurology at the Waisman Center on the UWMadison campus. The company creates drug discovery and toxicology testing tools using patient-derived or genetically modified stem cells. They provide large-scale production of specialized neural cells to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. Neural cells produced with this same technology are used to treat devastating central nervous system diseases such as Parkinsons and Alzheimers as well as spinal cord injuries, through their subsidiary BrainXell Therapeutics.

Founders: Shouming Du (President & CEO), Su-Chun Zhang (Board member)

Year: 2015

Employees: 26

UWMadison Connection: Waisman Center; School of Medicine and Public Health

Mike Sussman

The core technology for Immuto Scientific was developed by co-founder Michael Sussman, UWMadison biochemistry professor, in collaboration with Leon Shohet, engineering professor emeritus. Other co-founders include former engineering postdocs and grad students Josh Blatz, Daniel Benjamin and Faraz Choudhury, as well as Dr. Sussmans lab scientist Benjamin Minkoff. The company develops solutions that accelerate the drug discovery process by automating complex protein structure analysis for protein therapeuticsa type of drug produced within living cells (such as Herceptin). These drugs are used in the treatment of difficult-to-cure diseases such as cancer. Their Plasma Induced Modification of Biomolecules technology helps companies understand how a drug attaches to its target molecule in the body.

Founders: Daniel Benjamin (CTO), Josh Blatz, Faraz A. Choudhury (President & CEO), Benjamin Minkoff, Leon Shohet, Mike Sussman (CSO)Year: 2018

Employees: 11

UWMadison Connection: College of Engineering; College of Agricultural & Life Sciences

Bryan Bednarz

Voximetry is a spin-off company out of the lab of Bryan Bednarz, associate professor of medical physics at UWMadison, who co-founded the company with two other lab members, Joseph Grudzinski and Paul Wickre. Using high-speed graphics processing, the technology helps deliver personalized radiopharmaceutical therapy (a radioactive drug)a safe, effective and targeted approach to tumor treatment. The software provides detailed information on how the drug circulates and how it interacts with both cancers and healthy tissues. This enables physicians and physicists to tailor treatment to each individual patient.

Founders: Bryan Bednarz (CSO), Joseph Grudzinski (CIO), Paul Wickre (CTO)

Year: 2016

Employees: 12

UWMadison Connection: School of Medicine and Public Health

Link:
Five health tech startups you should know - University of Wisconsin-Madison