Monday, December 1, 2003

Biotech

Providence startup brushes up on its polymers

By Patricia Resende

William Lee is taking the stench out of sportswear, shoes and hospital sheets by using a non-woven cloth with polymer brushes in it.

Lee recently presented his idea and his company, eMembrane Inc., at the Brown Venture Forum. He co-founded eMembrane Inc. with Jeff Morgan, an associate professor at Brown University. The Providence, R.I.-based startup is focused on commercializing polymeric materials.

EMembrane has landed $345,000 in seed capital and has secured space in the Slater Center for Biomedical Technology's incubator in Providence. It has licensed from KJK Inc. in Japan the right to commercialize technology used to produce a non-woven cloth that absorbs and neutralizes odors. Polymer brushes are grafted onto this cloth.

Lee, 37, said this type of application was used in Japan when apparel companies lined suits with cloth embedded with polymer brushes to absorb sweat and body odor.

But producing deodorant cloth is just eMembrane's way of bringing in early revenue. Lee said the company's real focus is to use the technology, dubbed "electron-beam-induced grafting," to home in on life sciences applications including protein separation and purification, removal of viruses from plasma products, biosensors, and in proteomics tools.

For example, in protein purification, polymer brushes can combine both the filtration and chromatography process and therefore eliminate time and money. The polymer brushes target and capture special objects that can range from the size of an ion to the size of a cell.

"Chromatography is very time-consuming," Lee said. "And this process will also cut the cost of production. Chromatography is two-dimensional so you only get one layer of proteins on the surface whereas with the brushes you are creating a three-dimensional footing and capturing multiple layers of protein."

Proteomics, a growing market that is expected to hit $3.3 billion by 2006, is another potential area for eMembrane. In the development of proteomics tools, the company is producing specialty pipette tips. It will go up against other proteomics tool providers including Millipore Corp. in Billerica and Harvard Bioscience based in Holliston.

In the chromatographic media arena, eMembrane will compete with Merck KgaA in Germany and Amersham Bioscience in Sweden.

Lee is not worried about the competition. In fact, he intends to form alliances in licensing his technology to membrane filter and chromatographic companies.

"At present there are no other companies working on the same technology," Lee said. "They may have similar products, but they do not use the polymer brushes."

Born in Malaysia, Lee spent most of his time studying and working in Japan in jobs that ranged from research assistant to an investment officer assistant. He received his Ph.D. in chemistry and biotechnology from the University of Tokyo and then worked as a research associate at Massachusetts General Hospital. He also has two chemical engineering degrees.

While studying electron-beam-induced grafting, he began thinking about how the technology could be applied in biotechnology applications.

"After my post doc I said, 'I need to commercialize the technology and start a company,' " Lee said.

He decided that he needed some business experience first and took a job with JAFCO, one of Japan's largest venture capital investment firms.

Three years later, in November 2000, Lee moved back to the United States and decided to launch eMembrane out of his home in Cambridge.

The company has filed 13 patent applications, established a scientific and business advisory board and raised seed capital from angel investors and the Slater Center for Biomedical Technology. And just last month, it moved from Massachusetts to the Ocean State.

"Rhode Island has been promoting biomanufacturing, the government is pushing the policy and universities are also involved in creating an excellent center for biomanufacturing," explained Lee, about his decision to move the company.

Early next year, Lee and Morgan plan to raise between $2 million and $6 million in a series A round. The funding will be used for recruiting purposes, to establish manufacturing facilities and to bring the first series of products to market.

In the pipeline are several products including MemMap, a library of membranes. Then there's the FunTip line, a series of pipette tips. Its sister product is the FunTube, which is a series of microfluidic tubes.

Other products in the works include the ProteinHunter, the VirusHunter and the CellHunter - all of which are a series of functionalized membranes.

EMembrane's founders hope to bring the products to market within a year, but say the timeline depends on the amount of capital raised.

Patricia Resende is a freelance journalist based in Bristol, R.I.