Martin E. Shmagin

Inverseon, Inc. is a private company developing a re-profiled beta blocker for the treatment of asthma and COPD. Inverseon’s scientific approach, “Paradoxical Pharmacology”, is based on observations that chronic effects of inverse agonist drugs are completely opposite to their acute effects. A similar paradigm shift occurred in the late 1990’s with the approval of the first beta blocker for congestive heart failure, a disease state where the drug was also originally contraindicated. Inverseon’s scientific founder, Professor Richard Bond, identified the mechanism of action as inverse agonism at the beta adrenergic receptor and hypothesized that this observation represented a general pharmacological phenomenon and identified asthma as another disease to target. To date, the company has achieved a number of important milestones: completing two open-label Phase 2a studies demonstrating a dose-response, a comment in The Lancet in 2009 highlighting the published human clinical trial, and 2009 issuance of their first U.S. patent.

Urigen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a specialty pharmaceutical company which focuses on the development and commercialization of innovative products for urology indications. It is specialized in the design and implementation of products for patients with urological ailments, including products for amelioration of bladder pain syndrome and interstitial cystitis. The company was founded in March 1999 and is headquartered in North Brunswick, NJ.

Valentis lead drug candidate, Deltavasc, may treat peripheral arterial and ischemic heart disease with a gene that spurs new blood vessels to form (a process known as angiogenesis). In early stages of development are DNA vaccines for HIV, hepatitis C, and other viral infections. Another drug candidate, eNOS, could prevent tissue rejection in transplant recipients. The company licenses its technology -- include the GeneSwitch platform, which can turn off or on gene therapies -- to other drugmakers. These licensees include Genzyme, Pfizer, and GlaxoSmithKline.

Strober Brothers, Inc. provides drywall services. The private company is based in Brooklyn, NY.