Jumpstart and Portal Capital invest $500,000 in TheraVasc for PAD drug

JumpStart Inc., the Northeast Ohio venture development organization that accelerates the progress of high growth early-stage businesses, and Portal Capital, a Cleveland-based private equity firm investing in life science companies, each announce an investment commitment of $250,000 in TheraVasc Inc., for a total commitment of $500,000. The Cleveland, Ohio company is commercializing a treatment for peripheral artery disease.

TheraVasc has patented the use of sodium nitrate, an FDA-approved drug, in an oral formulation to treat vascular diseases, including peripheral artery disease (PAD). Sodium nitrite has already been shown to selectively promote the re-growth of blood vessels in tissues that have been blood-restricted due to PAD. In the U.S. alone, PAD, which can result from not only diabetes, but any condition that leads to blockage in arteries in the legs, affects nearly 14 million people with a sales market estimated at $1.3 to $3.3 billion annually.

With the investment, in addition to a recently awarded $100,000 loan from the Innovation Fund of the Lorain County Community College Foundation, TheraVasc plans to complete a phase I clinical study in humans. JumpStart Venture Partner, Kevin Mendelsohn, of the JumpStart Ventures team, will be working with the company to meet its milestones. "Because the company is repurposing a drug that is already FDA approved, it's on an accelerated track to providing an effective treatment for a condition that doesn't have one currently," Mendelsohn said.

According to John Zak, M.D., partner of Portal Capital, the region's ability to coordinate incubation and Ohio Third Frontier support with private capital resources played a major role in bringing this exciting new biopharma technology to the region. "TheraVasc represents an important opportunity for Northeast Ohio to have a meaningful impact in the world of biopharmaceutical intervention - a space in which the region has not flourished to date."

"I was struck by the strength of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Northeast Ohio," said Tony Giordano, TheraVasc President and CEO. "The funding we're receiving, the resources like that of the Global Cardiovascular Innovation Center (GCIC) available for entrepreneurs, and the skills of the people here have made this region the best place to build a biopharmaceutical company."