The University of Pennsylvania’s Division of Facilities and Real Estate Services announced today that Penn Center for Innovation spinout company Axonova Medical (Axonova) has signed a lease for a 265 square foot office and lab space within the Pennovation Center, the University’s lead facility for research and innovation. Axonova joins the list of Pennovation companies leveraging the University’s commitment to help incubate and accelerate the intersection of intellectual and entrepreneurial initiatives. Axonova is pursuing a technology that preclinical studies show can effectively recreate lost or damaged neural circuitry following neurological injury or disease—this includes currently untreatable peripheral nerve and spinal cord injuries.

Two of the company’s three business owners have particularly close ties to the University. Within Penn Medicine’s department of Neurosurgery, colleagues and co- founders Douglas H. Smith, MD, the Robert A. Groff Endowed Professor and vice chairman for research, and D. Kacy Cullen, PhD, an associate professor, specialize in neurotrauma and neural engineering research. Axonova’s President and CEO, Harry Ledebur, PhD, adds the experience of more than twenty years in biopharmaceuticals and a background in research and development, business development, intellectual property, and corporate finance. Since 2015, the trio has worked together to commercialize Axonova’s proprietary technology.

READ MORE