From WisPolitics.com/WisBusiness.com …
— Forward BIOLABS today announced plans to set up shop in Milwaukee and launch a statewide innovation program while expanding its presence in Madison.
The life sciences coworking space says it will add more chemistry capabilities as well as more equipment for the early-stage biotech startups that call its Madison facility home. It’s located in the MG&E Innovation Center at University Research Park, which houses nearly three dozen businesses including major companies including Exact Sciences.
Aaron Olver, managing director of URP and president of the board for Forward BIOLABS, says the coworking space is “an essential anchor for the next generation of biohealth start-ups, and our life sciences ecosystem more broadly, in Wisconsin.”
Forward BIOLABS’ new “biohealth startup hub” will be set up in the UW-Milwaukee Innovation Accelerator, which also includes BioForward Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Biohealth Tech Hub. Its development will be overseen by a dedicated advisory group, the release shows.
Meanwhile, BioForward and the coworking space are creating the Innovation to Commercialization Pipeline program, which aims to help biohealth startups across Wisconsin bring their innovations to market.
Through the program, companies will be able to apply for support that’s meant to de-risk the process of scaling up and bringing in more investment. It’s part of the broader tech hub effort to address gaps in capital access and commercialization challenges for the biohealth industry, according to the announcement.
“In joining forces with BioForward on the statewide ICP program, we are adding to the continuum of support for young, high-potential biohealth companies by providing pivotal resources to bolster capital attraction and scalability,” Forward BIOLABS CEO Jessica Martin Eckerly said in a statement.
See the release below.
— Gov. Tony Evers has signed into law a bill to allow Middleton to create a new Tax Increment District to support the biotechnology company Thermo Fisher Scientific.
The TID will enable the company to remain competitive and continue supporting 1,800 jobs in the community, according to Evers’ office.
“Wisconsin is world-renowned for our booming bio-health industry, and I am pleased that, as a state, we could take swift, bipartisan action to support a major employer like Thermo Fisher Scientific and continue to provide family-supporting jobs here in Wisconsin,” Evers said Friday in a statement. “Now more than ever, our work together to ensure companies and communities can remain competitive is critically important for Wisconsin’s continued success, and I’m glad to be signing this bill into law today.”
SB 24, now Wisconsin Act 6, passed unanimously in the Assembly and 32-1 in the Senate, with Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, in opposition.
— Madison biotech firm Invenra has launched a new platform for developing “trispecific” antibodies used in medical therapies.
The company recently announced its T-Body platform, which comes after Invenra’s earlier bispecific antibody platform called B-Body. Roland Green, the company’s CEO and chairman, says trispecific antibodies “represent a major leap forward in therapeutic design” and the platform can unlock their potential.
“We’re empowering partners to rapidly discover and advance a new class of multispecific therapeutics,” he said in a statement.
Invenra last week presented information on the new platform at the PEGS Boston Protein & Antibody Engineering Summit.
See more at Madison Startups and listen to an earlier podcast with Green. See the release below.
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– Invenra: Launches T-Body trispecific platform to advance next-generation therapeutic antibodies
