(Nashville, Tennessee) – August 5, 2002
Cumberland Emerging Technologies (CET) and NanoDelivery, Inc. (NDI) have signed an agreement making NDI the first official tenant in CET’s new downtown life sciences facility. Last month CET signed a lease accessing up to 20,000 square feet in downtown Nashville, adjacent to the Union Station Hotel, for development of this laboratory facility.
NDI was established by Ales Prokop, Ph.D., a research professor at Vanderbilt University’s Department of Chemical Engineering. The company currently specializes in water-soluble nanotechnology for drug, gene and antigen delivery and vascularization.
“Our rationale to relocate NDI to the new CET facility was twofold,” said Dr. Prokop. “The proximity to Vanderbilt University is a major benefit, and we look forward to collaboration with CET on technologies relevant to its core pharmaceutical interests.”
“We are pleased to welcome NDI as a tenant for our new facility,” said A.J. Kazimi, CEO of Cumberland Pharmaceuticals. “Dr. Prokop’s background in both Chemical Engineering and Applied Microbiology has led to his working at the interface between life sciences and engineering. NDI is capable both of developing novel technologies at the laboratory scale, and initiating the studies necessary for successful commercialization of its development work.”
NDI’s research is the subject of several granted patents and pending applications both through Vanderbilt and the company itself. A portion of the work is also the subject of funding proposals for collaborative development work between CET and NDI.
Cumberland Emerging Technologies Inc (CET) is a joint initiative between Vanderbilt University, Cumberland Pharmaceuticals Inc, and the Tennessee Technology Development Corporation (TTDC). The mission of CET (www.cet-fund.com) is to bring biomedical technologies and products conceived at Vanderbilt and other Tennessee research centers to the commercial marketplace. CET manages the development and commercialization process for select projects, and provides critical expertise on intellectual property, regulatory, manufacturing, and marketing issues that are critical to successful new biomedical products. This expertise is available also for future tenants in CET’s facility.