Inaugural Iowa Biosciences Showcase Helps Bioscience Startups Chart Their Entrepreneurial Journey

Dan Kirkpatrick, Iowa State University Office of the Vice President for Research

Posted Nov 22, 2024

The showcase was for potential companies with products or services relative to the State of Iowa economic development strategy – agriculture, advanced manufacturing, vaccines, sensors/diagnostics, immunotherapies, precision agriculture, precision livestock management, precision conservation and natural systems management, and plant-based products and solutions. The event – structured to provide participants with an opportunity to network and receive expert support on navigating the commercialization process – was open to undergraduate and graduate students, ISU faculty and professional and scientific staff with principal investigator eligibility, and entrepreneurs.

For many challenging medical conditions (e.g., metabolic diseases, hematologic diseases, and cancer), the best treatment option is the injection of a functional recombinant protein into the bloodstream to replace the missing or dysfunctional protein in these patients. Unfortunately, even after four decades, these recombinant protein therapeutics remain expensive to produce and challenging and inconvenient to administer. Halide Biologics is addressing this issue by designing, validating, and commercializing next-generation proteins that work better and last longer, greatly benefitting the health of millions who suffer from a broad range of ailments and conditions in the U.S. and worldwide.

Phagelux Animal Health increases performance, food safety, and quality in livestock production through a new biological product that controls bacterial disease. These sustainable and safe products are developed from a platform that uses bacteriophages, an alternative to antibiotics and heavy chemicals, and can be used during the life cycle or during processing, depending on application. The two current products control food safety pathogens, Salmonella in poultry production and E. coli in beef production, providing support for farmers in a key area where quality improvement has been difficult. The company’s goal is to enable farmers to improve performance, reduce reliance on chemicals and antibiotics, and reduce the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in livestock production.

Syntherna, Inc., is a vaccine biotech company founded on next-generation technologies for RNA therapeutics and vaccine delivery systems. The company’s platforms promise a reduction in time and cost of vaccine manufacture, while providing superior protection against disease. These cost-effective advancements will allow Syntherna to provide cutting-edge vaccine technology to price-sensitive markets. Syntherna’s mission is to advance human and animal health through use of these technologies to produce the animal and human vaccines of tomorrow.