Biomarker spinoff from Case Western Reserve gets $300K federal grant

Biomarker company NeoProteomics, a spinoff from Case Western Reserve University, has received a $300,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health.

NeoProteomics will use the funding to further refine its bioinformatics software, which is used by clients in the research industry to develop and discover new biomarkers for disease, according to a statement from Case. Biomarkers are proteins in the blood that can indicate the presence of a certain disease.

Pharmaceutical companies can use the biomarkers that NeoProteomics develops for research and analysis, which can help speed up drug development.

The company also has completed a 20-year licensing deal with Case for the software. Rather than taking a payment for the deal, Case receives a 15 percent ownership stake in the company. NeoProteomics will also pay Case a royalty from each sale.

“These two milestones represent goals the company has been working on for quite some time,” CEO John Schenkel Jr. said in the statement.

NeoProteomics was co-founded by Mark Chance, director of Case Center for Proteomics and Bioinformatics. He’s also the company’s chief scientific officer, as well as interim chair of Case’s department of genetics. “We are just beginning to discover how important software is to the detection and cure of human disease,” he said.