ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Georgia Bio today announced recipients for the Innovation Award. The Innovation Award will be presented to NFANT Labs, LLC for their nfant® Feeding Solution product; Abeome Corporation for the Abeomouse; and Dr. Mark R. Prausnitz of the Georgia Institute of Technology.
The Georgia Innovation Award honors the department, institution, company or individuals who are forging new ground by thinking outside traditional paradigms to create some unique technology. The recipients will receive their awards at the Georgia Bio Annual Awards Dinner January 28, 6 pm to 9 pm, at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre. Visit www.gabio.org/awards for more details.
NFANT Labs LLC
NFANT Labs is an emerging medical device company empowering the future of neonatal and pediatric medicine by producing smart products developed to deliver objective and measurable data on the most common and crucial problems faced by NICU infants. Its first product, nfant® Feeding Solution, is the first FDA-cleared IoT medical device focused on the NICU and concentrates on one of the utmost vital aspects of an infant’s growth and development and one of the top reasons for delays in discharge –feeding. Through its products, the company is changing the way the world’s most vulnerable infants are being cared for and nurtured, ultimately ensuring better outcomes and overall quality of life from the hospital and beyond.
NFANT is being recognized for its nfant® Feeding Solution product. Unlike an ordinary baby bottle, nfant® Feeding Solution is the only medical device that can determine an infant’s tongue movement during actual feeding and provide objective, measurable data.
Learn more at http://www.nfant.com/.
Abeome Corporation
Abeome is a privately-held biotechnology company focused on the discovery of best-in-class therapeutic monoclonal antibodies – the fastest growing segment of global drug sales. Founded on technology licensed from the University of Georgia, Abeome has recently delivered on the promise of the initial technology through the engineering of a world-class in vivo B-cell affinity maturation and selection platform. AbeoMouse™ is a triple transgenic mouse engineered to generate an enhanced immune response whose B-cells are engineered to never cease the affinity maturation process and to always display on their surface the antibody each secretes. AbeoMouse™ is primarily deployed to develop Abeome’s pipeline of therapeutic product candidates in Autoimmunity and Immuno-Oncology.
Abeome is being recognized for the development and commercialization of the Abeomouse, and the platform's ability to produce B-cells that surface display secreted antibodies.
Learn more at http://abeomecorp.com/.
Mark R. Prausnitz, Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology
Mark is a Regents’ Professor and holds the J. Erskine Love Jr. Chair in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech. He leads a research group of more than 30 people working to develop novel mechanisms and technology to enhance and target drug and vaccine delivery for medical applications. His work has produced more than 220 research papers and more than 35 issued or pending US patents (in addition to international filings). In 2011 he co-founded Clearside Biomedical, which has raised $48 million in funding and is running three phase 2 or 3 clinical trials to treat inflammatory conditions in the back of the eye using the novel microneedle injection technology developed in Mark’s lab. In 2014, he co-founded Micron Biomedical, which is a clinical-stage company that seeks to commercialize microneedle patch technology developed in Mark’s lab for needle-free vaccination against influenza, polio and other diseases and self-administration of biopharmaceuticals without injections. Mark holds a BS degree from Stanford University and a PhD degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both in chemical engineering.
Mark Prausnitz is being recognized for his success in translating stelar science into useful products that will have a positive impact on the health of individuals and the population at large. He was the key scientific member of teams that have taken fundamental discoveries in microneedles and turned them into products to treat diseases of the eye and for cost-effective administration of vaccines to the global community.
For a list of past Georgia Bio award recipients, click here.
Georgia Bio (www.gabio.org) is the state’s life science industry association whose members include pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies, medical centers, universities and research institutes, government groups and other business organizations involved in the development of life sciences related products and services.
Note to Editors: Credentialed members of the news media are invited to attend. Registration is complimentary. Please contact Maria Thacker (404-920-2042; mthacker@gabio.org).