Myomics, Inc., was incorporated in Rhode Island in 2003. Operations to date have been funded by an investment from the Slater Technology Fund and through research grants from NIH, NSF, and private foundations. The company’s core technology (drug screening using three dimensional muscle-based platforms) was initially developed at Cell Based Delivery (CBD), a venture-backed startup focusing on therapeutic protein delivery. Upon CBD’s dissolution, the founders (Drs. Herman Vandenburgh and Robert Valentini) purchased the intellectual property rights to the drug screening technology and subsequently licensed it exclusively to Myomics. Myomics’ senior management teamed with then Brown University engineering professor Gregory Crawford (engineering consultant, now Dean of Science at Notre Dame University) and two former Brown students, Victoria Barbata and Frank Benesch-Lee, to launch Myomics. This team formed the initial nucleus for Myomics and has expanded to seven full-time employees and several part-time interns in 2010. Myomics has successfully miniaturized its three-dimensional bioengineering technology to accommodate robotic high-content drug screening, has generated compelling proof-of-concept data, and has filed new patents to broaden its intellectual property portfolio.
