Johnson & Johnson Innovation has opened JLABS @ TMC, a new 34,000-square foot life sciences incubator that will provide entrepreneurs with shared lab space, private offices, and modular laboratory suites. Also, those accepted to join the incubator will also benefit from value-added operational, education, and business services. The new JLABS facility can accommodate up to 50 startups, and will open with 21 companies, including four winners of the JLABS Quick Fire Challenge.

JLABS @ TMC and is the fifth JLABS facility to open in the United States, and the first with a medical device prototype lab, including a 3D printer, which will provide entrepreneurs access to specialized tools, as well as skills building programs to design and develop smart health technologies. Other JLABS facilities in North America are located in San Diego (flagship), San Francisco, South San Francisco, Boston and Toronto.

JLABS @ TMC opens with first 21 resident companies, medical device prototype lab, and collaborative work environment.“We’re thrilled to expand our JLABS initiative into Houston,” Paul Stoffels, M.D., Chief Scientific Officer and Worldwide Chairman of Pharmaceuticals at Johnson & Johnson, said in a statement. “The city’s rich research, academic, and investment communities provide a robust ecosystem of early stage innovation, and present a unique opportunity to collaborate with Texas startups to deliver much-needed therapeutics, medical devices, and consumer health solutions to patients and consumers more quickly.”

The following companies are the first selected as residents of JLABS @ TMC:

• Beta Cat Pharmaceuticals – Targeting cancer stem cell/tumor activator pathways with potent, in cell, small molecule inhibitors. The lead program is in Wnt/ beta catenin signaling, to help inhibit cancer growth.
• Icell Kealex Therapeutics – T cell engager-armed oncolytic virus for the treatment of solid tumors.
• IDA Therapeutics – Developing Immuno Diverse Antibodies to fulfill the unmet demand for efficacious antibody-based products in therapeutic, diagnostic and research applications.
• IGY Immune Technologies & Life Sciences – Design & manufacturing of proprietary technology and processes making it possible to create immune health ingredients to strengthen and supplement the body’s natural immune system against broad and targeted bacterial, viral and autoimmune ailments.
• ImmunoMet Therapeutics – Innovative oncology drugs to increase patient survival by disrupting cancer metabolism and enhancing anti-cancer immunity.
• Immunophotonics – An immuno-oncology company developing a novel drug for use in an in situ autologous cancer vaccine (inCVAX) for the treatment of metastatic cancer.
• Innovate Wireless Health – A real-time, HIPAA-compliant solution that gives health eco-system partners (hospitals, payers, pharmaceutical companies and employers) a technology platform to improve patient outcomes and increase societal benefit within chronic illness populations.
• Medicenna BioPharma – A clinical-stage immunotherapy company dedicated to the development of highly selective cytokines for targeted treatment of cancer, autoimmune disease and fibrosis.
• Metaclipse Therapeutics – Developing a personalized cancer immunotherapy using tumor membrane vesicles prepared from the patient’s own tumor and combined with proven immunostimulatory molecules.
• NanoMedical Systems – Commercializing revolutionary silicon-based medical nanotechnology products that address unmet clinical needs for personalized medicine, via improved biomarker detection for research, microbial surveillance, and diagnostics; long-term subcutaneous drug-delivery implants; and multi-staged injectable antitumor particles.
• Noninvasix – Patient monitoring system to accurately and non-invasively measure cerebral venous oxygenation in real time.
• Oncomfort – Reducing anxiety during cancer treatment through psychological interventions in Virtual Reality.
• Panamab – Dedicated to the development of monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of cancer, fibrosis associated diseases and infectious disorders.
• Seremedi – CareScriptions is a mobile patient management platform for surgical teams supporting preoperative patient care.
• TomoWave Laboratories – Tomography systems that listen to the sound of light absorbed in tissues in order to see inside the human body, and detect and diagnose disease by providing physicians with quantitative functional information with high contrast and molecular specificity.
• Viracyte – Pioneering novel T cell therapies to treat viral infections in order to improve patient outcomes and lower healthcare costs.
• Wntrix – Antibody drug conjugates and beyond: the discovery and development of breakthrough targeted therapies for cancer treatment.
• Adhesys Medical – Developing next-generation surgical adhesives based on polyurethane, which permit quick and safe wound closure, topically as well as inside the human body.
• Alterna Therapeutics – Developing new therapeutics to treat diabetes and obesity.
• Procyrion – Aortix is a heart pump implanted without surgery, designed from the ground-up as a safe and effective treatment for chronic heart failure which affects one in five adults in the United States.
• Resonant Therapeutics – High-throughput antibody discovery platform for breast and other cancers focused on identifying therapeutics targeted at novel antigens induced by the tumor microenvironment.

All JLABS locations are accepting applications from biotech, pharmaceutical, medical device, consumer, and digital health companies.