The University of Chicago has issued its first license through the UCGo! Startup License program to spinout RiMO Theraputics, a nanopharmaceutical company.
The UCGo! Startup License is an optional, standardized license agreement created last year by UChicagoTech, the University’s Center for Technology Development and Ventures, to increase entrepreneurship at the University. The UCGo! program is jointly operated by UChicagoTech and the Chicago Innovation Exchange. A new pathway for licensing University intellectual property available to qualified UChicago startup companies, the optional program provides standardized, non-negotiable terms, shortening the timeline for company launch and minimizing the company’s legal costs.
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“We expect that RiMO Therapeutics is the first of many startup companies from the University of Chicago that will use the UCGo! Startup License,” said Steve Kuemmerle, UChicagoTech deputy director. “The response to this program has been extremely positive from our own faculty as well as investors and members of industry.”
Under the agreement, RiMO Therapeutics, based in Elk Grove Village, Ill., has licensed the rights to novel oncology therapeutic technology developed by Wenbin Lin, the James Frank Professor in Chemistry and the Comprehensive Cancer Center. Lin’s scalable solution combines nanotechnology and low-dose X-rays to effectively eradicate solid tumors.
“Through the company’s technology platform, RiMO Therapeutics can selectively target tumors, leaving the surrounding healthy tissue unaffected,” said Ralph R. Weichselbaum, chair of Radiation and Cellular Oncology at the University of Chicago Medicine and chief medical officer for RiMO. “This low-cost, low-radiation dose solution eliminates treatment problems with current radiotherapy treatments, enhances current immunotherapies and provides an alternative solution for treating radio-resistant tumors.”
RiMO Therapeutics will continue development of the nanopharmaceutical technology platform. The company also received funding from the University of Chicago’s Innovation Fund. Together with angel funds, RiMO Therapeutics has enough capital to complete its pre-clinical studies and initiate clinical trials in 2016.
“Through the UCGo! program, we were able to expedite the licensing process, which allowed us to continue our focus on developing this technology and growing the company,” said Lin, who is also chairman and CEO of RiMO Therapeutics. “We are eager to continue advancing this sophisticated platform, which could change the way we combat the most difficult-to-treat cancers.”
The UCGo! Startup License program is available to University faculty members, other researchers, students and staff members, including scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory. Supplementing the UCGo! Startup License is a broad range of educational programming offered by the Chicago Innovation Exchange, the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation or other on- and off-campus resources.
Lin’s research was supported by the National Institutes of Health grants CA151455 and CA198989.
—Prof. Kunle Odunsi
