GHS gets innovative

By Charles Sowell  

JUNE 23, 2011 2:05 p.m. (0)

Greenville’s cutting edge cancer research center has more than doubled in size with the launch of a 20,000-square-foot innovation zone at the Institute for Translational Oncology Research (ITOR), the Greenville Hospital System announced Wednesday.

ITOR is part of the Greenville Hospital System University Medical Center’s Cancer Center.

KIYATEC, the designer of novel 3D cell culture technology that could become instrumental in cancer breakthroughs, is the first private company to buy in at the new facility.

KIYATEC will lease 1,500 square feet of office space at the ITOR facility located on the Greenville Memorial campus. The vast majority of that space is to be used for lab work.

Sam Konduros, business development director for ITOR, would not discuss details of the arrangement but said the leasing rates for companies locating at the innovation zone are market driven and competitive.

“We want to give these startups every advantage we can as they strive to develop cutting edge technologies,” he said.

He said ITOR is developing a template for further lease arrangements with the KIYATEC deal and expects an announcement in about a month on another company deciding to locate there.

“ITOR is a great test bed for innovation,” said Matthew Gevaert, KIYATEC’s CEO. “We love having the ability to bounce our ideas off clinicians to solidify a better understanding of real-world medical applications of our technology. We look forward to the interaction, fostering dialogue and sparking innovation.”

ITOR’s specialists deal in hard facts and cutting edge technology, said Joe J. Stephenson Jr., the center medical director.

“What we’re doing is developing treatments and testing new drugs here,” he said. “The patients are the beneficiaries, of course.”

With the kinds of research done at ITOR and the sheer numbers of patients things can move along at a quicker pace.

The advantage of KIYATEC’s three-dimensional approach is that it closely mimics the natural processes of cell activity in the human body, ITOR spokespersons said, and should result in improved patient specific outcomes as well is savings in treatment and drug discovery. It could also reduce the use of animals for drug testing.

At the press conference, SC Launch said it is increasing its stake in KIYATEC by $200,000, bringing its total investment to $600,000.

SC Launch provides entrepreneurs with tools for success to help build technology startups.

“We know that collaboration with leading-edge companies and universities is crucial and building those partnerships will remain a major focus of our institute,” said Stephenson.

Since 2004, ITOR’s clinical research unit has conducted 12 groundbreaking  human studies and has collaborated with more than 30 pharmaceutical companies, ITOR said. The research unit helped obtain FDA approval of one of the newest therapies for melanoma recently. 

The research zone will provide laboratory and office space for KIYATEC and the newly expanded facility will become the center of  ITOR’s growing biorepository services platform and its Winn the Fight Tissue Bank.

Winn the Fight was founded by family and friends of Karl Winn, who died in September 2007. In partnership with GHS and ITOR, the program is supporting the development of a state-of-the-art tissue bank that will benefit patients and fuel translational research efforts.