Research Triangle Park, NC: The North Carolina Biotechnology Center has awarded $250,000 to Precision Human Biolaboratory (PHB) to boost its commercialization and development of a unique blood test for major depression.

The loan amount was the maximum available under the Biotechnology Center’s Strategic Growth Loan program launched last year to help promising new North Carolina biotechnology companies survive the difficult startup process.

PHB, founded here in 2006, is developing a new and unique proprietary technique for diagnosing and monitoring the therapy of clinical depression, a debilitating condition also referred to as major depressive disorder (MDD). Physicians traditionally diagnose and monitor MDD with subjective behavioral questionnaires and clinical assessments.

PHB’s diagnostic platform includes a sensor chip to capture biomarkers in patients’ blood samples that are specific to the target disease. It also includes a dedicated instrument to analyze the chip’s signals and process the resulting data into a physician-friendly format.

PHB was founded by five experienced life science professionals, including Dr. Yiwu He, who serves as president, and Dr. John Bilello, who is chief scientific officer. Previously, Dr. He was the global head and Dr. Bilello was director of technology development in GlaxoSmithKline’s Human Biomarker Center.

Additional founders include Dr. Bo Pi, CEO and and Dr. Perry Renshaw, professor of psychiatry at Harvard medical School. Larry Stambaugh, former CEO of Maxim Pharmaceuticals and principal of Apercu Consulting Services, serves as board chairman.

PHB has filed a number of US provisional patent applications, including patents covering its sensor chip and proprietary measurement technology and patents covering multiple biomarker diagnostic methods and applications of label-free protein array technology.

“Thanks to the North Carolina Biotechnology Center’s help,” said Yiwu, “PHB is developing a diagnostic tool that has the potential to greatly assist the medical, psychiatric and drug development communities in their efforts to address one of the highest-frequency and most debilitating conditions our society faces.
Bilello said the firm’s research has already identified potentially important biomarkers in the human body that correspond to the physiological changes associated with depression. “With the addition of this Biotechnology Center funding, PHB will continue toward our goal to bring the bright light of science into the darkness of depression,” he said.

http://www.ncbiotech.org/news_and_events/news_releases/phb_loan.html