A bi-national medical-device enterprise developing emergency therapies for traumatic brain injuries has staked a foothold on the New York Medical College campus as the first prospective tenant for the iBio-NY business incubator under construction there.
Thermopraxis L.L.C., an early stage company whose owners also operate a partner company in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has leased office space this summer on the Valhalla campus for its headquarters. The U.S. Department of Defense and militaries worldwide, as well as sports equipment manufacturers and ambulance first responders, could be major customers for its innovative technology.
Thermopraxis in the next few months expects to start clinical proof-of-concept trials of its initial proprietary products at metropolitan New York hospitals. The devices, inflatable bladders into which cooling gas is pumped from compression cylinders, can be worn like shower caps by recently injured victims of concussions or brain contusions or built into military and other helmets to cool and protect the brain from further damage before medical treatment is available.
“It”™s like a small ice pack for the brain but it”™s much more effective,” said Anthony L. Finley, president of Thermopraxis. “The unique thing about our technology is it”™s noninvasive. People have used ice packs for thousands of years. It goes back to the Greeks.”
Finley, an attorney, founded the company and its sister company in Brazil, Stratego, with Dr. Renato Rozental, the companies”™ CEO and chief scientific officer.
A native Brazilian who also holds U.S. citizenship, Rozental is an associate professor of cell biology and anatomy at New York Medical College. His business research lab and scientific team are in Rio de Janeiro, where military police in the narcotics division will test the bladder-equipped helmets, said Finley.
“There”™s a very strong push in Brazil to elevate it as a leader in biotech and high tech,” he said. The company wants to tap that market, “as well as the U.S, which is the most important market for biotechnology,” he said.
Finley said the company is in a fundraising stage here “to accelerate the availability and commercialization of our products.” In February, Thermopraxis struck an agreement with Schutt Sports, the nation”™s largest manufacturer of football helmets, to collaborate in developing and marketing versions of its trademarked Thermocrown brain protection for installation in Schutt football helmets and other sports and military helmets.
Finley and Rozental have been working here with the Hudson Valley Economic Development Corp. (HVEDC) and its NY BioHud Valley initiative to develop a biotech industry cluster in the seven-county region.
A key element in that effort is New York Medical College”™s biotech business incubator, which will occupy space in a long-vacant, 120,000-square-foot research building on its Grasslands campus. The construction project, budgeted at approximately $20 million, is expected to be completed this coming winter. The building also will be home to the Hudson Valley Biotechnology Center for Disaster Medicine and Emerging Infections.
Finley said Thermopraxis would like to move its campus headquarters to the incubator “if there”™s enough space.” Its current office “is a foothold” on campus, he said.
Dr. Robert W. Amler, vice president of government affairs and dean of its School of Health Sciences and Practice, said the college has not yet established a standardized review to screen and select companies applying for incubator space. “Certainly Thermopraxis is an excellent prospective tenant,” he said.
Sen. Charles Schumer, who helped obtain federal grant funds for the New York Medical College project, in a press release said the arrival of Thermopraxis transforms the biotech incubator “from a concept on a blackboard to a jobs-creating bricks-mortar-and-lab coats reality.”
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