Meet 3 Trailblazers in Life Sciences at Fitzsimons Innovation Community 

Fitzsimons Innovation Community /University of Colorado

Fitzsimons Innovation Community is home to more than 80 health and life sciences companies, whose life-saving scientific research is blazing the trail for medical advancements in curing diseases, improving patient care and saving lives. In partnership with the University of Colorado Anschutz (CU Anschutz) Medical Campus in Aurora, CO, Fitzsimons provides laboratory and office space for entrepreneurs, renowned clinicians and researchers. Meet three of the many entrepreneurs conducting groundbreaking research in the life sciences at Fitzsimons Innovation Community.

Jim Lambert, Vona Oncology

Lambert is the founder and president of Vona Oncology and an associate research professor at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus, where he runs an academic pathology lab. Lambert says he fell in love with research during his college days and wanted to get into research of biomedical importance, which eventually led to Vona Oncology being founded in 2018.

“Vona means ‘hope’ in the Icelandic language because our mission is for our technology to provide new hope for patients with aggressive cancers,” Lambert says.

The company markets a small molecule drug to treat aggressive cancers such as triple-negative breast cancer, ovarian cancer and melanoma.

“The molecule drug is aimed at very aggressive cancers where there have been no previous treatment options for those patients other than chemotherapy,” Lambert says. “We at Vona are all glad to be giving these patients hope to extend their lives and make their quality of life better.”

Robin Shandas, EnteroTrack

Shandas is an entrepreneur, scientist and CEO of EnteroTrack, and he is also a 30-year professor at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus. In fact, he started the Department of Bioengineering at the campus.

EnteroTrack produces a noninvasive string test for patients who have eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) and other upper gastrointestinal (GI) diseases.

“We developed a simple device that features a string inside a capsule, and a patient swallows the capsule while holding onto one end of the string,” Shandas says. “The capsule dissolves in the esophagus, and the string unwinds and remains in place in the esophagus for about an hour.”

Shandas says the string absorbs mucus and luminal content, then is pulled out of the esophagus for a doctor to examine and test.

“After getting the diagnosis from the string, a doctor can often expand the number of foods that an EoE patient can eat without the patient having additional gastrointestinal problems,” he says. “More hospitals are signing up to administer our test to patients, including Children’s Hospital Colorado.”

The American Medical Association says 100 million Americans are living with or at risk for chronic upper GI diseases, and an uncomfortable endoscopy tube procedure down the throat was the only means of obtaining an upper GI reading – until now.

Max Calao, OncoVerity

Calao is CEO at OncoVerity, a company whose name combines oncology with truth. His background in biotechnology was driven by a passion for combating disease, especially rare diseases.

“Besides wanting to launch therapies for diseases, my research turned personal when my son was diagnosed with a rare cancer at the age of 16,” Calao says. “After successful surgery and feeling OK today at the age of 23, his situation only strengthened my quest to seek more cutting-edge technology in fighting rare diseases.”

OncoVerity is a therapy to help fight acute myeloid leukemia or AML. “Our therapy tailors treatments specific to an individual patient’s tumor biology. Our [treatment] is an advanced therapy, not a drug or procedure,” he says.”

Calao says that Fitzsimons Innovation Community is why OncoVerity is successful today.

“Typically, biotech startups take six to eight years to get where we are today, but it’s only taken us one year to achieve what we have achieved,” he says. “The collaborative environment at Fitzsimons and access to the CU academia right next door has allowed us to quickly advance.”