Powering Invention, Igniting Impact: University of Pittsburgh FY 2021 Impact Report

Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Fiscal Year 2021 Impact Report

POWERING INVENTION

IGNITING IMPACT

The University of Pittsburgh Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship inspires, educates and enables others to make an impact on society, improve the regional economy and transform their own careers. The office is composed of four units: the Innovation Institute, Office of Industry and Economic Partnerships, Big Idea Center and Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence.

Innovation Institute Intellectual property management; commercialization education, mentoring and funding; technology licensing and startup formation

Office of Industry and Economic Partnerships Industry engagement and economic development

Big Idea Center Student innovation and entrepreneurship

Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence Regional small business education, consulting and networking

Director’s Message Fiscal year 2021 was a year that few of us are eager to repeat. Yet it was a year of major accomplishments for Pitt innovators, and we made significant progress in building the critical infrastructure needed to support the growth of the regional innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem.

The fiscal year began four months into the pandemic, with most Pitt labs closed, severely restricted or having put existing research on hold to focus on tackling COVID-19. Despite these circumstances, Pitt innovators produced another year of impactful innovation, highlighted by 17 startups launched from the University and a record 124 patents issued to Pitt innovators. The progress in patents issued resulted in Pitt’s jumping eight spots in the ranking of worldwide universities issued utility patents from the National Academy Inventors and Intellectual Property Association, from 28th in 2019 to 20th in 2020.

It also was the strongest year in the University’s history for revenue from regular patent and licensing activity, reflecting the increasing commercial success of Pitt-developed innovations. Under the University’s intellectual property policy, which received an update during the fiscal year, an increased share of these proceeds is being shared by the innovators and their departments or institutes, strengthening the cycle of discovery and impact.

Not only was FY 2021 a strong year for commercialization activity within the University, but previous Pitt startups and licensees also achieved significant milestones along their commercialization paths, as you will learn more about in this report.

It also was an important year for the strengthening of the support system for Pitt innovators.

We are grateful that the Chancellor’s Gap Fund was reauthorized during the year. This fund plays an important role in providing up to $75,000 in funding for promising innovators to explore the commercial potential of their ideas.

Office of Industry and Economic Partnerships strengthened its outreach to industry with the hiring of Joe Havrilla to lead it. Havrilla and his team had a successful year in which they forged many exciting new opportunities for Pitt researchers to engage with industry partners to help achieve real-world impact for their work. A great example is a new partnership with BridgeBio to accelerate the development of breakthrough therapies for genetic diseases and cancers with clear genetic drivers.

FY 2021 was a big year as well for our Big Idea Center for student innovation and entrepreneurship.

The Big Idea Center, operating all its programs virtually, managed to have different innovation teams win prizes in both the prestigious Rice University Business Plan and the Atlantic Coast Conference InVenture Prize competitions. From a foundational perspective, it also launched the Big Idea Advantage Fund, an investment fund to support student startups as they work to get their first product to market.

foundations had provided support to LifeX to establish the region’s first wet lab incubator space.

Importantly, support for the region’s life sciences sector ramped up substantially in the past year.

We are excited for Pitt innovators getting back to a more normal approach to discovery and impact through commercial translation in the new fiscal year. The support that the Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the regional innovation and entrepreneurship system can provide at every step from the lab to the market has never been more robust. If you’re ready to explore the commercial potential of your innovation, our door is open.

A $25 million gift from the Hillman Foundation, announced in February, will supercharge vision care research and development through the Eye & Ear Foundation, which is pursuing vision restoration breakthroughs under the direction of José-Alain Sahel, who came to Pitt in 2016 from Paris’ Sorbonne University to direct the Department of Ophthalmology.

The LifeX startup accelerator received an allocation of $3 million, and $1 million was allocated to vaccine research. Previously, both the Hillman and Richard King Mellon

Finally, the Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence played a critical role in helping regional small businesses navigate the pandemic.

For its efforts, in September 2020, the University of Pittsburgh Small Business Development Center (SBDC) was recognized by the U.S. Small Busines Administration as the national SBDC Excellence and Innovation Award winner of 2020.

Evan Facher Vice Chancellor for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Fiscal Year 2021 by the Numbers

FY 2021 Startups

Innovation Institute

Adolore Therapeutics Inc. Established to develop and commercialize safe and effective LongActing Local Anesthetic (LALA) gene therapies to address serious unmet needs in acute and chronic pain

Invention disclosures

Transactions

Startups

Patents

315 lightbulb 17

109 handshake

Altissimo Inc. Early-stage drug discovery company focused on degenerative muscle diseases

rocket-launch

124 file-certificate

Revenue

*

Astrata Platform for delivering to health plans and health care providers advanced analytics to improve quality measurement and health care delivery

$12,620,437 money-bill-wave *

Five Year Comparison Invention disclosures

1459

1768

Transactions

674

800

711

700

Dialogistics The Cultural Engagement Playbook contains purposeful engagement tools designed to help organizations create space for conversations to discover deeper connections through both in-person and virtual trainings during these unprecedented times

600 500 400 300 200

Duo Oncology Tumor penetrating, combination nanomedicines from ultra-small micelle platform

100

2012-16

2017-21

+21%

2012-16 2000

2017-21

0

+5.5% 1500

1000

Patents

Startups 600500

503

500 0 400

100

87

80 60

300

320

200

48

40 20

100

2012-16

2017-21

+57%

0

2012-16

*Patents and revenue were a record for FY 2021

2017-21

+81%

0

J3RM Company has opted out of inclusion KaliVir Immunotherapeutics LLC Genetically modified viruses designed to selectively infect tumor cells, while bypassing normal cells, not only killing the cancer cells, but also inviting the body’s own immune system to identify the cancer as a foreign substance in need of disposal Neoolife An electrospinning method of injecting polymer fiber into a gap to develop bioengineered heart valves

Push2Spin Medical device for the removal, processing and re-injection of adipose tissue for cosmetic and reconstructive fat grafting procedures; a closed system that reduces procedure time, mess and need for assistance and improves operative efficiencies Portal Therapeutics Developing therapies for a rare genetic disease with high unmet clinical need Replay Therapeutics A genome-writing company developing genomic medicines to treat human cancers ReLiver Augmenting normal gene expression in patients with liver failure in order to restore healthy organ function RezQ Seeking to treat and cure Type 1 Diabetes; its core therapeutic is a dendritic cell therapy Signature Dx Identifying genomic biomarker signatures for early and advanced disease stages Sotiria Therapeutics Gene therapy for treating Krabbe disease Stitch Bio LLC Fusion gene technology for oncology Vats Biosciences Spiral DNA replication for developing novel isothermal amplification-based COVID-19 and other infectious disease tests that can be used in point-of-care settings

Pitt Startups on the Move LyGenesis Inc. LyGenesis, which develops cell therapies that enable organ regeneration, received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance to begin a Phase 2a study on the safety, tolerability and efficacy of its cell therapy for patients with end-stage liver disease. The company also completed $11 million in convertible debt financing to proceed with the clinical trial using donated liver cells that are implanted in lymph nodes, which act as bioreactors to regrow functioning organ tissue.

Peptilogics Inc. Peptilogics, a biotechnology company leveraging computational design to discover peptide therapeutics, raised $35 million in series B financing led by entrepreneurs Peter Thiel and Christian Angermayer. In April 2021, it announced the successful completion of a Phase 1 clinical trial for its lead compound, PLG0206, a potent anti-infective that has been granted FDA orphan drug and qualified infectious disease product designations for its initial focus on the treatment of prosthetic joint infections.

Oncorus Inc. Oncorus, a viral immunotherapies company focused on driving innovation to transform outcomes for cancer patients, is conducting a clinical trial in collaboration with Merck & Co., Inc., to evaluate the combination of Oncorus’ ONCR-177 with Merck’s anti-PD-1 therapy, Keytruda (pembrolizumab), as part of an ongoing Phase 1 study of ONCR-177 in adult patients with advanced and/or refractory cutaneous, subcutaneous or metastatic nodal solid tumors. The company has previously raised more than $150 million to advance its therapies toward the market.

InMune Bio InMune Bio is in a Phase 2 clinical trial in advanced melanoma patients who have not responded to other therapies. The cancer immunotherapy company licensed technology developed by Pitt’s father-and-son team of Nikola and Lazar Vujanovic. The licensed intellectual property is a novel treatment strategy that targets myeloid-derived suppressor cells, which often are elevated in patients with cancer and secrete immunosuppressive cytokines that protect the tumor from the innate immune response. By eliminating these cells, InMune Bio’s platform primes the body’s natural killer cells to see and kill cancer cells.

Innovation Institute

The Chancellor’s Gap Fund was reauthorized earlier this year to provide assistance for research projects that have demonstrated strong commercialization potential, but require key proof of concept experiments or other data or prototypes in order to attract interest from potential investors or industry partners.

The fund provides grants ranging from $25,000 to $75,000, based on what is needed to advance the project through a significant milestone. The original Chancellor’s Innovation Commercialization Fund, established five years ago, provided support to several projects that resulted in the formation of startups spun out the University, including Lumis Corp. and ECM Therapeutics, and many others that are continuing on the path to impact.

“Taking an innovation that last mile from a research discovery in the lab to a market-ready product is not easy, with many hurdles to clear,” said Evan Facher, vice chancellor for innovation and entrepreneurship and director of the Innovation Institute. “The Chancellor’s Gap Fund is intended to bridge those valleys of the commercialization process by providing funding needed to de-risk a discovery and bring its market potential more clearly into focus.”

Three projects were selected for funding in the initial cohort:

Vanish Therapeutics, Inc. - Biodegradable Nerve Stimulator A biodegradable nerve stimulator to treat acute and chronic pain. The stimulator is an injectable wire that is placed under the skin near the nerve of interest using ultrasound and degrades over 3-6 months.

TVI A clinical decision support, software application system for clinicians to more safely manage blood pressure levels during surgery that enhances the quality of care while reducing its cost. The TVI algorithm uses individual patient characteristics to generate personalized blood pressure parameters associated with lowest risk of low-pressure events.

Universal SNAP-CAR T Cell Therapy Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy provides a personalized treatment for cancer that has led to remarkable long-lasting remissions in patients who previously had no other option. The investigators have developed the SNAP “universal” CAR T cell platform technology, in which SNAP CAR T cells can be tailored to treat any tumor when combined with tumor-specific antibodies.

Four Pitt innovators were recognized by the National Academy of Inventors for the impact of their work on society during FY 2021: Eric Beckman, Distinguished Service Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering in the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, was elected a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). Beckman is the eighth Pitt faculty member to be named an NAI Fellow and has received 40 U.S. patents with more pending.

Beckman’s research focuses on molecular design, biomedical polymers, green product engineering and sustainability. In 2003, he cofounded the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation with the mission of catalyzing sustainability innovation and education across the University and in the region.

In 2005, he cofounded Cohera Medical Inc. to commercialize surgical adhesive technology developed at the University. Beckman took an entrepreneurial leave of absence from the University in 2007-2009 to help move the products to market.

Three Pitt professors were named NAI senior members: • Bryan Brown, associate professor in the Department of Bioengineering • Michael Lotze, professor in the Department of Surgery • Kacey Marra, professor in the Department of Plastic Surgery

Office of Industry and Economic Partnerships

In FY 2021, the newly reorganized Office of Industry and Economic Partnerships (OIEP) engaged with hundreds of companies and investors around research collaborations, technology licensing, startup formation opportunities, recruiting and student engagement. The collective efforts of the academic units and the offices of Pitt Research resulted in approximately 200 new collaborative research agreements projected to be worth nearly $50 million.

These collaborative research programs with industry aim to drive impact through innovation with Pitt researchers and industry experts joining forces to advance important science and solve real-world problems. Industry increasingly looks to Pitt to partner across the entire spectrum of research, from fundamental research to translational and clinical development. Pitt’s industry collaborations span many technological domains, including energy research, advanced materials and most prominently, life sciences.

Under the leadership of Joe Havrilla, who came on as associate vice chancellor for innovation and entrepreneurship and director of the office after a successful career in the life science industry, most recently as senior vice president and global head of business development and licensing for Bayer Pharmaceuticals, the OIEP team produced several other key accomplishments, including: • the creation of a comprehensive database for developing, tracking and reporting on new partnership opportunities; • the development of a Pitt opportunities report that was distributed to approximately 180 venture capital and industry partners, generating significant new potential partnerships; • the introduction of 22 Pitt startups to investors; • support for the Association of Public Landgrant Universities’ Commission on Economic & Community Engagement for Pitt Chancellor Patrick Gallagher; and • coordination of Pitt’s involvement in the national McKinsey Higher Education Task Force.

Pitt industry collaborations in the life sciences are advancing the development of new treatments for diseases with high unmet needs, such as cancer, neurological disorders and rare diseases. Supporting translational efforts in these areas is a priority for Pitt, and in 2021, the University announced an expanded partnership with BridgeBio Pharma, Inc., a San Francisco, California-based pharmaceutical company developing therapies for genetic rare diseases and cancers. Building on an initial program launched in 2020 to commercialize a rare disease therapy coming from the School of Pharmacy, Pitt and BridgeBio are working together to identify new therapeutic programs for codevelopment.

Industry collaborations also are a major part of Pitt’s growing portfolio of ophthalmology research. Under the leadership of José-Alain Sahel, Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of Ophthalmology, Pitt has launched new translational research programs aimed at developing curative treatments for debilitating diseases that lead to vision loss. One such program is a research collaboration with Astellas Pharma Inc. focused on the discovery and optimization of gene therapies for the treatment of dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD). In this collaboration, Debasish Sinha, the Jennifer Salvitti Davis, MD, Chair in Ophthalmology Research and professor of ophthalmology, cell biology and developmental biology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, a world-renowned authority in the research of back-of-the-eye diseases, and Astellas, which has capabilities in drug discovery, are working together to evaluate and optimize the drug candidates, with the aim of providing new treatment options that help to recover and maintain vision for patients suffering from dry AMD. Pitt’s depth of expertise and alignment with industry needs also was realized in the area of advanced materials.

In FY 2021, the University established multiyear research agreements with eight materials-focused companies, including large multibillion-dollar U.S.-based companies and similarly sized European companies, all seeking to leverage the broad and deep expertise of Pitt researchers. In addition, a new industry consortium was launched, focusing on advanced materials in the arenas of electric power and electric vehicles, along with the designation of a prestigious National Science Foundation IndustryUniversity Cooperative Research Center focused on materials degradation. In both efforts, nearly two dozen local, regional and national industry partners have signed on as members to realize the benefits of collaborating with Pitt.

Big Idea Center

Student Innovators Place Second at ACC InVenture Prize Competition A multidisciplinary group of Pitt students is helping people with mobility challenges live more independently.

Swanson School of Engineering seniors Ravi Gandhi, Grace O’Malley and Melody Whittaker created a device that helps people with limited mobility independently don jackets.

They’ve been joined by Swanson School of Engineering senior Joshua Zito and College of Business Administration senior Isabella Stash to manufacture and commercialize their product. They currently have multiple patent-pending products and are hoping to create more devices to solve more independence-limiting mobility issues.

Their ingenuity resulted in becoming the second team of Pitt students to win a prize in the ACC InVenture Prize competition—a pitch competition involving teams from the 15 universities constituting the Atlantic Coast Conference.

Reachable Solutions earned second place and $10,000.

They have formed a company, Reachable Solutions Inc., to further develop and market their accessibility devices.

Pitt Student Entrepreneurs awarded $30,000 in Rice Business Plan Competition SimpL, now EZPT, a team led by Pitt senior Kunal Gandhi, was awarded $30,000 in the prestigious Rice Business Plan Competition, winning both 7th place and The Spirit of Entrepreneurship prize.

Gandhi also won a Young Entrepreneur Award from the NFL Players Association this winter. Gandhi, a neuroscience and computer science major at Pitt, has been developing an app that uses artificial intelligence to show people in real time whether their posture or technique is correct while training.

The Rice competition bills itself as the “world’s largest and richest” student startup competition. SimpL became the second Pitt-connected team to place in the competition.

In 2017, Forest Devices, a medical device company founded by Pitt School of Medicine student Matt Kesinger, won the top prize.

“The most valuable part of SimpL for me was having the opportunity to represent the University of Pittsburgh at a national level. We get to show the rest of the country that great innovation takes place at our university,” Gandhi said.

The project had its origins in the classroom. In the Art of Making engineering class, students identify a problem to solve for their capstone project. With the assistance of the local Parkinson’s Foundation, the Reachable team interviewed dozens of people with Parkinson’s and other mobility-limiting diseases to learn about the challenges they face. They discovered that putting on a jacket was difficult and independence-limiting for many of those they interviewed.

“To come up with solutions to problems and be able to directly see them make an impact for people is an experience that’s hard to match,” said O’Malley, one of the product designers. After an initial foray into the Big Idea Center’s Randall Family Big Idea Competition with their first prototype, they entered the competition again in 2020, winning a $15,000 prize and initiating their startup journey with Pitt support all along the way.

Institute for Entrepreneurial Excellence The IEE continues to play a vital and increasing role in the support of the regional entrepreneurial economy. In FY21 this was especially true given IEE’s continued role for the region supporting small businesses with the ongoing COVID-19 economic crisis.

Big Idea Advantage Fund Established to Invest in Pitt Student Startups Pitt students who want to explore innovation and entrepreneurship have a new resource to help them bridge the critical period between the initial idea and having a prototype or beta version of their product or service.

The Big Idea Advantage Fund, a new resource of the Big Idea Center, will provide investments between $10,000 and $25,000 to startups from students of any level— first year to postdoc—across the University.

This fund provides a unique opportunity for students who demonstrate exceptional commitment and whose ideas show commercial potential with critical early funding to support them before they are able to generate revenue.

The Big Idea Advantage Fund is being made possible by donors who have stepped forward to accelerate the growth of student innovation and entrepreneurship at Pitt.

Visit bigidea.pitt.edu/programs/big-idea-fund for more information.

Clients Hours Capital Formation

Because of the work delivered during FY20, in FY21 the University of Pittsburgh Small Business Development Center (part of the IEE) was named by the Small Business Administration as the #1 Economic Development Organization in the United States, out of more than 1,000 organizations.

In FY21, IEE graduated 345 minority-owned businesses with the “Essentials to Success” program in partnership with UPMC, which has been expanded to the entire UPMC supply chain footprint of Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York.

The University of Pittsburgh IEE was awarded a grant from Department of Defense for the AIM Higher (Artificial Intelligence in Manufacturing) Defense Manufacturing Consortium for $345,000. IEE also was awarded an Economic Development Administration (EDA) Maker to Manufacturer (M2M) grant for $75,000.

Also on the training front in FY21, IEE had 28 students in the Entrepreneurial Fellows class (business training for leaders in companies with more than $1 million in revenue) and 22 students in the Community Power to Prosper program (business training for entrepreneurs starting businesses in distressed and underrepresented neighborhoods).

FY16

FY17

FY18

FY19

FY20

FY21

1,094

889

817

887

1,470

1,413

8,828

7,906

7,911

7,188

8,402

11,543

$13.1M

$13.3M

$19.4M

$16.3M

$25.6M

$20.24M

Startups

83

87

88

56

52

60

Jobs Created

369

277

408

745

462

290

Jobs Supported

653

1,255

986

2,889

9,819

8,440

2021 Celebration of Innovation Recognizes Accomplishments of Pitt Innovators

The annual Celebration of Innovation reflects on the accomplishments of Pitt innovators who have achieved important milestones in the commercialization of their work as they strive to make an impact on the world and on people’s lives. These include being issued a patent or having their technology or creation licensed or copyrighted, including the formation of startup companies based on their intellectual property.

“The recipients of this year’s special awards exemplify the drive of Pitt innovators to take on the world’s biggest challenges and create an impact for their research through commercialization,” said Evan Facher, vice chancellor for innovation and entrepreneurship and director of the Innovation Institute.

“

The recipients of this year’s special awards exemplify the drive of Pitt innovators to take on the world’s biggest challenges and create an impact for their research through commercialization.

”

Emerging Innovator Award Cecelia Yates The Emerging Innovator Award recognizes an early-to-mid-career Pitt faculty member who has demonstrated an extraordinary commitment to innovation commercialization.

Cecelia Yates has developed the first cellular and molecular laboratory fully equipped for basic, translational and clinical research within the School of Nursing. Her tissue repair laboratory investigates the chronic and fibrotic responses to injury.

Yates has submitted 11 invention disclosures to the Innovation Institute that have thus far resulted in six issued U.S. patents and three licenses of her work, including the formation of Ocugenix, a startup company aimed at treating macular degeneration, four years ago.

Most recently, Yates received a $250,000 grant from CSL Behring, a global biotech company focused on rare diseases, to further develop peptides that imitate the action of proteins that target the underlying causes of fibrosis. She has formed a company around the FibroKine platform of anti-fibrotic chemokine peptides to treat organ fibrosis.

Watch Emerging Innovator Award

James “Chip” Hanlon Volunteer Mentor Award Richard “Dick” Heilman Volunteer mentors are critical to the commercial translation of Pitt-developed innovations. They assist faculty and students in the often-unfamiliar terrain of entrepreneurship.

Dick Heilman is a veteran executive in the glass and fiberglass industries, having held numerous senior national and international roles at PPG Industries in addition to his own consulting practice. He has mentored teams through six cohorts of the Innovation Institute’s First Gear commercialization program and two participants in the Kuzneski Innovation Cup student innovation competition, including the 2019 winning team.

Watch Mentor of the Year Award

License of the Year Award George Gittes George Gittes is chief of the Division of Pediatric Surgery and professor of surgery and pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh and director of the Richard King Mellon Foundation Institute for Pediatric Research at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

Gittes’ research has demonstrated that by delivering select genes to the pancreas via virus vector, the genes will express proteins that transform alpha cells in the pancreas, which do not produce insulin, into functional insulin-producing beta cells. These

cells are distinct enough from beta cells to avoid the attention of the immune system.

In July 2020, Gittes was awarded a grant of $2.59 million from the National Institutes of Health to build upon his groundbreaking gene therapy work toward finding a cure for diabetes.

Genprex, based in Austin, Texas, was founded in 2009 as an immunogenic cancer therapy company. The company raised $40 million in capital last year in preparation for two cancer clinical trials. The company recognized in Gittes’ research the opportunity to expand its gene therapy platform to diabetes.

Watch License of the Year Award

Startup of the Year Award Maria Escolar/Forge Biologics Maria Escolar, professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh, is among the world’s leading authorities on Krabbe disease.

Krabbe is a rare congenital disease resulting from a missing gene that is

needed for the production of myelin, the protective coating on nerve cells.

Krabbe is a devastating disease that destroys the nervous system and is most often fatal before age 5.

clinical trial through UPMC, bringing this potentially lifesaving therapy one big step closer to reality.

Through her decades of research, Escolar has been a pioneer in the diagnosis and treatment of Krabbe.

Families from around the world travel to her clinic at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh to consult with her. But standard treatment and care can only briefly extend the lives of children stricken with this awful disease, so Escolar also has been working tirelessly for many years on a gene therapy that can halt its progress.

Student Innovators of the Year

The founders of Forge Biologics licensed Escolar’s discoveries as the first in what it plans to be several gene therapies for rare diseases.

Escolar serves as the company’s chief medical officer.

In February 2021, Forge was granted fast track, orphan drug and rare pediatric disease designations from FDA for its gene therapy for Krabbe. It is now actively recruiting patients for its

Watch Startup of the Year Award

James O’Brien and Noah Pyles University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine students James O’Brien and Noah Pyles paused their studies to pursue entrepreneurship.

Two years ago, they did what all entrepreneurs do: They identified a problem—the inefficient handling of medical and scientific waste plastic— and began to think about potential solutions. They launched a company, Polycarbin, that is developing a software-enabled platform that aims to make single-use scientific plastics a thing of the past.

James O’Brien

Noah Pyle

In 2020, they entered the Randall Family Big Idea Competition, the region’s largest student innovation competition, and came away with the $25,000 top prize.

From there, they participated in the Big Idea Center’s Blast Furnace accelerator program and the Forge incubator program. They have taken advantage of every resource available to them through the Big Idea Center, including the experienced entrepreneurs in residence, to hone their business model and go-to-market strategy.

Last fall, they were selected as one of eight finalists to compete in the Cleantech Open competition. They have recently raised $2 million to help launch their platform.

Watch Student Innovator Award

Small Business of the Year Award: $1 Million in Revenue or Greater COE Distributing/ J.D. and Melanie Ewing COE Distributing is a thirdgeneration family-owned furniture distribution business based in Smock, Pennsylvania. At age 19, J.D. Ewing took over the family business, and he has grown COE Distributing from an enterprise worth $200,000 to now nearly 500 times that.

Like any business owner, Ewing and his wife, Melanie, have navigated the pitfalls and problems that every business faces, including those of the past year. While office occupancy dropped 85% in 2020 as a result of the pandemic, COE Distributing’s revenue rose. COE made a commitment to retain all employees and maintain their wages and approved additional paid time off for any employee whose family was impacted by the virus.

Watch Small Business of the Year Award

Small Business of the Year: Less than $1 Million in Revenue Blanket & Board/Tierra Thorne and Colleen Peddycord Blanket & Board, founded in 2020, is an event planning company co-owned by social workers Tierra Thorne and Colleen Peddycord. They provide pop-up luxury picnics set in Pittsburgh’s public parks as well as offering private event catering.

Thorne and Peddycord see their female- and minority-owned business as being more than the services they offer. As mental health counselors at UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital, they work to ensure that their picnics promote self-care, connection with others and nature and building community. They also use the entrepreneurial platform they’ve created to uplift at-risk populations in the community by highlighting local nonprofits and donating a portion of their proceeds to programs that support equality and human rights.

Blanket & Board has showed true entrepreneurial spirit by creatively marketing their brand and business.

They competed in—and won—Invest In Her’s 2020 Pitch Competition, established strategic partnerships with leading local organizations like Henne Jewelers and Community Kitchen Pittsburgh and offered socially distanced public events to highlight their services to the community.

Watch Small Business of the Year Award

Marlin Mickle Outstanding Innovator Award William Federspiel The Outstanding Innovator Award recognizes Pitt faculty members who have demonstrated an extraordinary

commitment to achieving impact through the commercialization of their research.

William Federspiel is the John A. Swanson Professor in the Department of Bioengineering and director of the Medical Devices Laboratory at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. In his time at Pitt, Federspiel has submitted 32 invention disclosures and has been issued 14 patents, with many more pending. He has had his work licensed 11 times.

Not long after arriving at Pitt, Federspiel licensed his work on an artificial lung device to form Alung Technologies, where he serves as the head of the scientific advisory board.

Alung was in multiple clinical trials for its Hemolung Respiratory Assist System to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease when that work was interrupted by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company recognized a role for the device in treating critically ill COVID patients and applied for emergency use permission from FDA, which it quickly received. Since then, more than 100 patients have used the device successfully. This data may help the company to obtain full U.S. regulatory approval.

Watch Outstanding Innovator Award

COVID-19 Technologies

Pitt innovators responded to the COVID-19 pandemic head on, from three different vaccine programs to several startups, including one that is developing nanobody antiviral treatments derived from llamas.

Here is a sampling of COVID-related technologies that are available for licensing: Individual Biocontainment Unit to Reduce Viral Transmission to Health Care Workers and Patients: A rapidly deployable, easily scalable and inexpensive solution to meet immediate and unprecedented need for in-hospital biocontainment

An Insertion Unique to SARS-CoV-2 Exhibits Superantigenic Character Strengthened by Recent Mutations: A sequence motif unique to SARS-CoV-2 identified using computational models that may be responsible for excessive autoimmune response seen in multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) and related drug development strategies to target it Principal Investigator: Ivet Bahar

Principal Investigator: J. Peter Rubin

Novel Approach for the Discovery of Repurposed Drugs and Compounds for Treatment Against SARS-CoV-2 Infection: Workflow for predicting drugs and compounds that interact with host cell proteins involved in coronavirus infection and immune response to viral infection

Adenovirus-based SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine: An intranasal vaccine candidate that exploits the vulnerability of the spike protein on the viral envelope of SARS-CoV-2

Principal Investigators: Ivet Bahar, Andreas Vogt, Mary Hongying Cheng, Moshe Arditi, Fangyuan Chen, Qingya Shi, Fen Pei, Mark Schurdak, Douglass Taylor and Andrew M. Stern

Principal Investigator: Louis Falo Jr. Mice Expressing Human ACE2 Under Control of the Murine ACE2 Locus: Mice expressing the human ACE2 receptors that make us uniquely susceptible to COVID for use in testing coronavirus vaccines and therapeutics; one of the only nonhuman animal models of SARS-CoV-2 infection available Principal Investigators: Mark Jay Shlomchik and Sebastien Gingras

Innovation Institute Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship First Floor, Gardner Steel Conference Center 130 Thackeray Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15260 412-383-7670 innovation.pitt.edu @PittInnovates

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