Accelera Diagnostics and STC Sign Option Agreement for Portfolio of Technologies Developed at the Center for Molecular Discovery

Dr. Larry Sklar, a Distinguished Professor of Pathology, the Center for Molecular Discovery’s Director, and a UNM Innovation Fellow.

Albuquerque, NM – July 9, 2014 Accelera Diagnostics and STC.UNM, the University of New Mexico’s technology-transfer and economic-development arm, are pleased to announce that they have signed a limited exclusive option agreement for a portfolio of technologies developed at the university’s Center for Molecular Discovery (CMD). The 21 technologies include compounds, repurposed drugs, devices and highly sophisticated methods for analysis and characterization used for the discovery of new treatments for cancer and other diseases.

The inventions were developed by a collaborative group of researchers at the Center, including Drs. Larry Sklar, Bruce Edwards, Angela Wandinger-Ness, Alexandre Chigaev, and Richard Larson from the Department of Pathology; Dr. Eric Prossnitz from the Department of Cell Biology and Physiology; Dr. Todd Thompson from the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences; and many other researchers at UNM. Accelera Diagnostics, a New Mexico-based start-up company, is a spin-out of Sunbelt Technologies LLC, a privately held venture capital firm investing in early stage bio technologies and start-ups. Accelera will develop the CMD technologies for commercial applications.

Sunbelt Technologies Founder & Managing Member, Andy Pham, stated: “Today marks the beginning of a great relationship between Sunbelt Technologies and the Center for Molecular Discovery at UNM. Their highly regarded portfolio is a prime example of dedicated University researchers and scientists developing cutting edge medical technologies, and partnering with the private sector to not only realize their vision and generate profits, but importantly, to save lives as well.”

STC CEO Lisa Kuuttila is excited about the prospects for the commercialization partnership. “The Center for Molecular Discovery is one of UNM’s most innovative academic collaborative programs. The researchers at the CMD are all innovators and experts in a wide range of disciplines at UNM’s Health Sciences Center and share a commitment to drug discovery for new treatments for many cancers and other major diseases. Their technology pipeline has already produced an impressive number of patented inventions. We are very pleased that Accelera is interested in this portfolio for commercial development.”

Dr. Sklar, a Distinguished Professor of Pathology, the Center’s Director, and a UNM Innovation Fellow for his many inventions with high commercial impact, is looking forward to working with Accelera. “The investors and the inventors contributing to this portfolio have a shared vision for making an impact by working together to save lives.”

CMD is a NIH-funded drug discovery research lab focused on discovering small molecules as candidates for new drugs and discovering new uses for FDA-approved drugs (referred to as repurposed). The Center was selected by the NIH as one of only nine national molecular discovery centers in the U. S. and has generated more than $50 million in funding to develop its technologies. The Center program is an open system of more than 40 highly collaborative UNM researchers who believe that collaboration is regenerative and empowering.

Under the leadership of Dr. Sklar, the Center screens compounds as candidates for new treatments, using state-of-the art cytometers, automated systems, and bioinformatics tools. The HyperCyt® System, a sample-handling technology for high-throughput flow cytometry, invented by Drs. Sklar and Edwards and licensed to local start-up Intellicyt for manufacturing and sales worldwide, enables the CMD to test hundreds of different cell types against hundreds of thousands of compounds for potential drug candidates at a rate that is 30 times faster than commercial cytometers. The Center believes the next big outcomes of its research and discovery of new and repurposed drug candidates will lead to new treatments of disease and personalized treatment for individual patients.

The Center for Molecular Discovery is housed in the new Innovation, Discovery, and Training Complex on UNM’s Health Sciences Center campus.

About Sunbelt Technologies Management LLC
Sunbelt Technologies Management LLC is a venture capital firm for accredited investors based in Las Vegas, Nevada, which seeks out and invests in promising new medical technologies and medical startup companies such as Accelera Diagnostics. For further information concerning Sunbelt or Accelera contact andy@sunbeltpm.com or call 702-450-8866.

About STC.UNM
As the technology-transfer and economic-development organization of the University of New Mexico, STC.UNM protects and commercializes technologies developed at UNM by filing patents and copyrights and transferring the technologies to the marketplace. We connect the business community (companies, entrepreneurs and investors) to these UNM technologies for licensing opportunities and the creation of start-up companies. For additional information, contact Jovan Heusser, STC Senior Innovation Manager, at (505) 272-7908 or jheusser@stc.unm.edu. To learn more about us, visit our website at http://www.stc.unm.edu.