With support from Empire State Development’s Division of Science, Technology, and Innovation (NYSTAR), three startups with roots in Cornell innovations are advancing technologies that aim to improve cardiovascular care, cancer treatment and patient well-being. The companies — Anova Biomedical, ARMA BIO and VoiceLove — were among 25 New York-based businesses receiving support in Round Three of the Innovation Matching Grants program.
“We are proud to see these startups thriving as they advance Cornell innovations toward the greatest good,” said Alice Li, executive director of Cornell’s Center for Technology Licensing (CTL). “These awards recognize not only the strength of the science behind each company, but also the dedication of our innovators and founders who are committed to bringing transformative solutions from the lab to society.”
The program supplements federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) awards with up to $200,000 in additional funding, helping early-stage technology development and accelerating the path from research to market.
“These startups are a testament to how Cornell’s innovation ecosystem can move medical breakthroughs from discovery to patient care,” said Lisa Placanica, senior managing director of CTL at Weill Cornell Medicine. “From protecting intellectual property and supporting licensing strategies to guiding startup formation, we provide the foundation that allows faculty and clinicians to translate their ideas into therapies and tools that improve health outcomes.”
Anova Biomedical: A new class of vascular grafts
Co-founded by postdoctoral fellow Anthony D’Amato, Ph.D., and Yadong Wang, Ph.D., professor of biomedical engineering, Anova Biomedical is transforming the materials used in vascular grafts for patients undergoing dialysis and cardiovascular procedures.
Current synthetic graft materials, largely unchanged since the 1960s, have high rates of complications and failures that increase patient suffering and healthcare costs. Anova’s novel biocompatible elastomers are designed to integrate with patient tissue, improving outcomes and reducing long-term risks.
The company, whose foundational technology was licensed through CTL, has received gap funding support from the Ignite programs, including the Fellow for New Ventures and Startup Projects, to launch the new venture. It has also benefited from educational entrepreneurship programs within Cornell’s broader innovation ecosystem, such as the Life Sciences Technology Innovation Fellowship, and is a member of the Center for Life Science Ventures in Ithaca, NY.
Currently in preclinical testing in large animal models, the company is scaling production to develop human-sized grafts with funding from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and the NYSTAR matching grant.
ARMA BIO: Advancing breakthrough therapies for treatment-resistant prostate cancer
Weill Cornell Medicine faculty Paraskevi (Evi) Giannakakou, Ph.D., and Cheuk Man Cherie Au, Ph.D., founded ARMA BIO to develop a first-in-class small molecule degrader drug to treat prostate cancer that has become resistant to standard therapies.
Prostate cancer remains the second leading cause of cancer death among men in the United States, and patients whose cancer no longer responds to hormonal therapies have limited treatment options. The ARMA BIO team has discovered compounds that can degrade both the full-length androgen receptor and its splice variant AR-V7, a key mechanism of therapy resistance. By overcoming this resistance, the company’s approach could provide a novel therapeutic pathway for patients with advanced, treatment-resistant disease.
Through CTL at Weill Cornell, the inventors received support for intellectual property protection, technology development, and gap funding through the Catalyst Fund (formerly the Daedalus Fund for Innovation), as well as for external funding applications supporting early-stage company development. They also participated in the BioVenture eLab’s Biomedical Innovation Challenge, awarded first place, which helped the company’s formation. A Fast Track STTR/SBIR award from the National Cancer Institute has propelled the research, with the NYSTAR matching grant enabling the team to advance their drug toward clinical development.
VoiceLove: Connecting patients in critical condition with their families
Developed by Tamatha Fenster, M.S. MD., and Marc Schiffman, M.D., both of Weill Cornell Medicine, VoiceLove is a HIPAA-compliant app that allows critically ill patients to exchange voice and video messages with their families, supporting emotional well-being and clinical outcomes.
The concept for their future technology was born from clinical insights during the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of ICU delirium, a serious condition linked to isolation, on patient wellbeing. Unlike video calls that require staff facilitation, VoiceLove developed a solution that provides a simple, secure, and patient-driven platform that allows family engagement while reducing the burden on clinical teams.
With guidance from Weill Cornell’s innovation ecosystem in the early stages and concept development and backed by federal Fast-Track funding from the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute of Mental Health, the founders transformed their idea into a company now engaged in clinical trials. The NYSTAR matching grant will further strengthen its pathway to wider adoption.
As part of Cornell’s broader innovation ecosystem, Neuralenz, a Cornell Tech Runway startup, also received a NYSTAR Innovation Matching Grant for its non-invasive platform to measure cerebral blood flow and improve stroke diagnosis and treatment.
These startups exemplify the diversity of technologies emerging from Cornell labs, across campuses and disciplines, translating academic discoveries into market-ready solutions. With additional support from federal and state partners, these companies and their inventors are advancing technologies that promise to improve lives in New York and beyond.
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