Editor's note: Este artículo está traducido al español.
Blood pressure is constantly changing in humans. And when a doctor or nurse measures a patient’s blood pressure with a cuff, they are getting only a snapshot of what it is in that specific moment.
Las Vegas medical-technology startup VenaVitals is developing a wearable device that would track real-time changes in blood pressure continuously and noninvasively.
“Being here in Las Vegas, we feel like there is just a lot of opportunity for us,” said VenaVitals co-founder and CEO Ray Liu. “Because there is this growing energy in this space, like growing interest, and there’s just a lot of willingness to try to make things happen and get deals done, and to be able to bring technologies like ours to the ecosystem.”
Liu, a native Nevadan, said VenaVitals — which originally spun out of the University of California, Irvine — made its way to his home state when it went looking for wet laboratory space and infrastructure that would allow it to keep research and development and manufacturing in-house.
The startup found its home at the brand-new Roseman Bioventures, a 120,000-square-foot research facility at Roseman University’s Summerlin campus that houses turnkey lab space, private and shared office space and more, according to Jeffery Talbot, vice president for research and dean of the College of Graduate Studies at Roseman.
The primary mission of Roseman Bioventures, which officially launched in March, is to improve health for Nevadans and around the world, Talbot said. The facility provides resources, lab space and connections to startups across the health sciences arena, from medical pharmaceutics to biotechnology, he said.
“It’s an opportunity to help these companies get their innovations into patients’ lives,” Talbot said. “And that’s already happening. We’re thrilled for that.”
To startups like VenaVitals, which now has six employees, the Roseman Bioventures facility is “state-of-the-art,” Liu said.
Because VenaVitals is not yet on the market, the company’s funds are limited, so having a lab that already has the infrastructure for specific experimentation is convenient and cost-effective.
“We just bring our people, and then we can start cranking and start doing R&D and building our devices,” he said. “So really, the key benefit is this wet lab space — it’s this R&D-type facility that provides the infrastructure to be able to run your experimentation.”
Roseman Bioventures is the next step in the university’s quarter-century history of training clinicians that support patients in Nevada and throughout the Intermountain West, Talbot said, and an investment in the economic diversity and development of Southern Nevada.
Roseman has partnered with local and national venture capital organizations, banking and financial services and others, Talbot said. The life-science initiative at Roseman has not only led to the retention of companies in Nevada, but their recruitment, as well, he said, pointing to VenaVitals, among others.
“It’s, we hope, improving health for our great state,” Talbot said. “It’s diversifying the economy. It’s bringing in more scientific and biotechnical expertise into our community. We just think that there’s a lot to like.”
Roseman’s lab space had features that proved attractive to VenaVitals and provided the specifications the startup needed to grow, Talbot said, in addition to favorable business conditions.
“It’s never been a better time to do business in Nevada,” Talbot said, citing how inflationary pressures are particularly acute in coastal corridors where biotech and life-science innovation are more likely to be concentrated. “Their dollars can go further here in Nevada than they could in, say, traditional hubs like the Bay Area or Boston.”
Danielle Casey, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, said the organization has come alongside Roseman’s incubator to help align it with regional economic development priorities and promote it to prospective companies.
Life sciences is “absolutely” a priority sector for the alliance, Casey said, as it works toward its goal of diversifying Las Vegas’ economy with high-growth, high-wage industries.
“Early-stage biotech companies go where they can access lab space, talent and commercialization support in one place,” she said in an email to the Sun. “This is exactly the kind of asset we need, as it enhances our competitiveness and fills a critical gap.”
With its Summerlin campus location, Roseman Bioventures is also next door to the university’s medical school.
Graduate and medical students at Roseman University who are interested in research and innovation can now interact with scientists from companies that find their home at the Roseman Bioventures facility and potentially gain training opportunities, Talbot said.
“We also view that as workforce development,” he said. “Being able to build the next generation — or grow organically — the next generation of life scientists here in Southern Nevada.”
VenaVitals is sponsoring the thesis project of one of Roseman’s pharmacology graduate students, Liu said.
Through connections with Roseman Bioventures and the Las Vegas ecosystem as a whole, the startup has been able to initiate a clinical study at University Medical Center and secure funding from the Governor’s Office of Economic Development’s Battle Born Venture capital program and former UNLV President Len Jessup’s Desert Forge Ventures.
Las Vegas’ quality of life and affordability was another draw for VenaVitals, Liu said.
“Everything really, synergistically, created this huge opportunity for us to be able to grow here in Nevada and be able to — I think not only grow, but also to thrive,” he said.
Talbot emphasized that establishing the life-science incubator was a team effort, with support from sponsors such as J.P. Morgan, the city of Las Vegas and others.
“If we can attract companies here that bring their expertise and their scientists, then we can take Nevada students and help facilitate their training in those companies,” he said. “And that builds a highly trained workforce here that allows other life science and biotech companies to be attracted to Southern Nevada as a place to grow.”
VenaVitals is in the process of obtaining FDA clearance to commercialize its technology, Liu said.
He’s excited about the launch of the life-science incubator at Roseman, Liu said, which will make it easier for startups like his to get up and running by renting a turnkey lab without the overhead costs they would otherwise incur.
“It has been a missing piece in Las Vegas, in the valley, to be able to have this type of infrastructure,” he said. “So I think it’s really critical, and it will help catalyze a lot of new innovation here in Las Vegas.”