Five New Companies Including Investment Group Join Science Center Port Business Incubator

PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--An investment group, a French medical equipment company and three life science startups have taken up residence in the University City Science Center’s Port Business Incubator.

“The Science Center was a natural choice for Claremont to establish a U.S. presence”

Investment group Karlin Asset Management, Claremont, Epitek, Inc., and Parsortix, Inc. have established offices in the Port business incubator at 3711 Market Street. Longevity Biotech is located in the Port’s Hubert J. P. Schoemaker Lab at 3624 Market Street.

Karlin Asset Management is a private investment firm managing over $1 billion of unleveraged equity capital. Armen Karamanian, a Kauffman Fellow at Karlin who runs Karlin’s Philadelphia office, focuses on early-stage investments.

A subsidiary of the Ballina Capital group, Claremont is a French company specializing in the distribution of medical and dental equipment. Since it was founded in 2003, Ballina Capital has applied an active creation and acquisitions policy and the group now consists of seven companies. Distributed through Claremont’s extensive network, the unique Nd:YAP dental laser is now available in 27 countries located in Europe, the Middle East and in the United States.

Claremont is the latest participant in the Science Center’s Global Soft Landing program, which fosters international business in the U.S. by helping global companies establish a foothold in local life sciences and IT markets. Claremont learned about the Science Center from ERAI, another Global Soft Landing participant which works to attract companies from the Rhone-Alpes region of France to the U.S.

“The Science Center was a natural choice for Claremont to establish a U.S. presence,” says Blandine Chantepie, U.S. director, sales and business development for Claremont. “Global Soft Landing makes it easy for international companies to quickly establish themselves in the U.S. market and focus on growing their businesses.” Chantepie adds, “the camaraderie with the fellow Port companies adds to the benefit of being in the Port Incubator and makes the Science Center an ideal location for a company new to the U.S.”

Epitek, Inc. is a biotechnology company that focuses on the investigation of: (1) drugs and devices for therapy of radiation exposure, and protection from radiation, and (2) regenerative medicine. The company collaborates with Temple University and the University of Texas in research. Epitek also provides consulting services.

Longevity Biotech is a preclinical biotechnology company that is uniquely positioned to produce a groundbreaking new class of therapeutics. The company’s proprietary Hybridtide platform technology overcomes typical drug-development challenges by simultaneously stabilizing structures while dramatically improving pharmacokinetic profiles. The Hybridtide platform enables the development of novel therapies for numerous biological targets and diseases with high unmet medical needs, improving on both small molecule and conventional biologic approaches used today. Longevity creates value through the milestone-based development of its core products while partnering other targets and indications of commercial interest. Spun out of the University of Wisconsin, Longevity Biotech currently has a contract with Fox Chase Cancer Center.

Parsortix is a particle separation company. The company’s technology enables the selective separation of particles of a wide range of sizes from fluid suspensions. Capture of specific cell types, based upon their physical dimensions and structural characteristics, offers a simple approach to the difficult task of obtaining pure biological samples for analysis in highly demanding applications. This approach enables separations that either have not previously been possible or that are expensive, unreliable or impractical using conventional methods. Parsortix was established on the basis of seed funding from ANGLE Technology Ventures, LLC and further investment from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of South Eastern Pennsylvania. Parsortix has demonstrated that its microfluidic cassette captures fetal cells from maternal blood samples, a finding with major clinical and commercial implications and has conducted research in partnership with Drexel University. Chief Technology Officer, George Hvichia commented, “We are now engaged in product development for the fetal cell diagnostics area, as well as the development of new applications. The facilities and general support available at Science Center are making the process substantially smoother for us.”

About the Science Center

The University City Science Center accelerates technology commercialization, regional economic development, and the market availability of life-enhancing scientific breakthroughs by bringing together innovations, scientists, entrepreneurs, funding, laboratory facilities, and business services. Established in 1963 and headquartered in Philadelphia, PA, the Science Center was the first, and remains the largest, urban research park in the United States. Graduate organizations and current residents of the University City Science Center’s Port business incubators have created more than 15,000 jobs that remain in the Greater Philadelphia region today and contribute more than $9 billion to the regional economy annually. For more information about the Science Center, go to www.sciencecenter.org.