Sharp Edge Labs Closes Series B Financing Round To Deliver Proprietary, Breakthrough Assay Tools For Biotech Research

PITTSBURGH, Aug. 19, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Sharp Edge Labs, a Carnegie Mellon University start-up company, has announced the closing of a Series B financing round, which was led by Newlin Investment Company.  The company will use the funds primarily to create the additional infrastructure needed to meet increased demand for its proprietary biological assays.  These innovative assays are used as powerful tools by pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to accelerate the development of new medicines.

Sharp Edge Labs' customers include some of the pharma industry's largest companies.  Its technology has shown particular promise in the development of medicines to treat Alzheimer's, Huntington's, Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases.  Working with companies in the biotech industry, Sharp Edge Lab's technology is also being applied to rarer diseases such as Cystic Fibrosis and Lysosomal Storage Disorders.

An assay is an analytic procedure used to assess and measure the activities of cells and organisms.  With the capability to tell the difference between normal and diseased cells, an assay can be used to find those rare compounds (potential new drugs) that can make a diseased cell behave more like a normal cell.  The assay, which consists of custom-designed cells and dyes, is created to study the protein molecules within a cell, which is called the "target."  With the better efficiency and accuracy in measurements obtained through Sharp Edge Labs' assays, drug discovery scientists can search libraries of hundreds of thousands or even millions of compounds that may be required to find just one potential drug candidate.  

"This funding will help Sharp Edge more effectively transition from its developmental phase more fully into its delivery phase where we can help the world's leading pharmaceutical companies solve medical problems that affect millions," said Scott Sneddon, Ph.D., J.D., and Sharp Edge's President and Chief Executive Officer.  "With a highly dedicated and talented team of Carnegie Mellon alumni, Sharp Edge has already met the extremely high standards of companies making progress against Alzheimer's and other common and debilitating diseases."

"In laymen's terms, at Sharp Edge our technology enables medical researchers to essentially place a molecule -scale 'radio frequency identification' (RFID) tag on individual targets within a  cell to home in more closely and accurately on their distribution and behavior, especially in the crucial process of protein trafficking within cells," added Sneddon.  "Errors in protein trafficking are at the heart of many human diseases, but we've simply lacked the ability to develop trafficking assays that are sufficiently fast and robust to make modern drug screening possible.  With our proprietary tracking and visual monitoring capabilities and tools, researchers can obtain deeper, more substantive data at much higher throughput, accelerating the development process."

Sharp Edge was founded by Alan Waggoner, Ph.D., and Marcel Bruschez, Ph.D.

Waggoner, Chief Architect at Sharp Edge, is the Maxell H. and Gloria C. Connan Professor of Life Sciences, and the Director of the Molecular Biosensor and Imaging Center at Carnegie Mellon University.  His research has focused on the development of fluorescence-based detection systems for biology and biotechnology.  He is a leader in the effort to develop microbiosensors to study protein regulatory processes in living cells and tissues.  He is world-renowned as the inventor of the "Cy-Dyes" that were instrumental in reducing the use of radioactive compounds in research, and were instrumental in the Human Genome Project.  Waggoner founded a company to commercialize these reagents, BDS, one of CMU's most successful spinouts to date.

Bruchez, Chief Technology Officer at Sharp Edge, is recognized as a leader in developing and commercializing research tools for bionanotechnology, an emerging field that creates or adapts materials and chemical processes to solve biological problems.  As a graduate student, he modified quantum dots – nanometer-sized crystal particles – so that they could be used to tag proteins and label cells for research.  This led to his founding of Quantum Dot Corporation, which developed and commercialized quantum dots for biological applications.  After he sold that company, he joined the Molecular Biosensor and Imaging Center at Carnegie Mellon as its Program Manager for the National Technology Center for Networks and Pathways.  His research focuses on optical tools for the detection of complex biological processes.

Sneddon, the Company's CEO, received his Ph.D. at Carnegie-Mellon University in Chemistry and Biology, and went first to Pfizer Central Research as part of the New Leads Drug Discovery group where he built a team applying supercomputer technology and X-ray crystallography to new drug development.  He then co-founded the Genzyme Drug Discovery program, where he ran the Assay Development and High Throughput Screening group for 10 years.  He later received his J.D. degree from Columbia Law School, and practiced law in Boston Massachusetts, focused primarily on life sciences companies and intellectual property law.  He moved to Pittsburgh in 2013 to build Sharp Edge Labs, because of the proximity to the founders' labs, and the ready access to uniquely qualified scientists.  

"Alan, Marcel, Scott and their team have already made enormous strides in the development and introduction of a game-changing tool set for pharmaceutical companies to use in research and development," said Bill Newlin, Chairman of Newlin Investment Company. "With early and continued success, making contributions to pharmaceutical research that will benefit countless patients and their families, Sharp Edge is playing a significant role in building on the foundation that future efforts to expand the region's biotechnology and life sciences communities will be built."

About Newlin Investment Company 
Newlin Investment Company, based in Pittsburgh, is a long-term investor in start-up and emerging companies.  The firm invests both financial and advisory resources in its portfolio companies.  Newlin Investment works in partnership with management to collaborate on strategic planning and effective organizational building, which includes the management, financial and operational segments of the business. 

SOURCE Newlin Investment