Date: Aug 18, 2006 Source: bizjournals (
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Washington University School of Medicine and BioGenerator will partner on launching Medros Inc., a new drug discovery company focusing on cancer and diabetes.
Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
BioGenerator, an investment fund, previously has invested in four other companies, all located in St. Louis. But Medros is the first BioGenerator-funded company originating from research conducted at Washington University.
Medros, founded by Dr. Thomas Baranski and Ross Cagan, both professors and research scientists at Washington University School of Medicine, will be located in the Center for Emerging Technologies (CET). Medros will devote a portion of BioGenerator's initial investment to ongoing research and will initially target cancer and diabetes, according to a release.
Medros' approach for discovering new drugs involves the common fruit fly and the use of robotics for high-throughput screening to determine a potential drug's effect on the whole organism, not just isolated cells.
"Medros fits perfectly with BioGenerator's mission to help bring life science discoveries out of the university researcher's lab through to commercialization," said Ken Janoski, who was appointed BioGenerator's president and CEO in early April.
Serving on the scientific advisory board of Medros are: Dr. Kenneth Polonsky, head of the Department of Medicine at Washington University; Dr. John Dipersio, deputy director of the Siteman Cancer Center and a professor of medicine at Washington University; and Phillip Needleman, former chair of Washington University's Department of Pharmacology and former chief scientist at Monsanto/Searle/Pharmacia, now scientific partner with Prospect Venture Partners.
Washington University in St. Louis is a private teaching and research university. Washington University School of Medicine is affiliated with Barnes-Jewish Hospital and St. Louis Children's Hospital.
St. Louis-based BioGenerator is a nonprofit, seed-capital investment fund. Major contributors to BioGenerator include the Danforth Foundation, the James S. McDonnell Foundation, Monsanto and Bunge North America
