Charleston Regional Development Alliance

Berkeley, Charleston & Dorchester Counties

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Charleston-based angel investment group DHE Partners bolsters new biotech companies

Oct. 1, 2003
Charleston Regional Business Journal
By Dennis Quick
According to Don DeLuca of Charleston-based angel investment group DHE Partners LLC, the ice is beginning to melt on the venture capital front and investment dollars are trickling through to entrepreneurs and start-up companies.

“We’ve gone from nothing happening—no deals, no money—to where deals are coming through, and money is beginning to flow,” DeLuca explains. “Investors are still being extremely cautious, but things are starting to happen.”

DeLuca attributes the budding activity to what he sees as an improving stock market and economic scenario. He adds that the hottest market in terms of investment activity is in the health science field.

“Anything with biotechnology or medical technology is attractive today, but the product has to be close to commercialization,” he says.

DHE Partners have two new clients meeting those requirements—CureSource Inc., which produces medical treatments based on stem cells, and LifeCheck Inc., creator of a metabolism-measuring patch users attach to their skin.

Launched from a $500,000 investment, the four-employee CureSource recently began operations at Charleston Cancer Center in North Charleston’s Trident Professional Park. Meanwhile, LifeCheck plans to move from Pittsburgh to a yet-to-be-chosen site in the Charleston area.

CureSource uses stem cells from cryogenically stored umbilical cord blood to treat a variety of ailments ranging from diabetes to cancer. Under certain conditions, stem cells can be induced to perform certain functions that help repair damaged tissues or organs. Medical experts say stem cells from umbilical cord blood are more pristine than stem cells from other sources.

“Umbilical cord blood is the easiest to obtain and there is no harm to the infant,” says CureSource President Don DeLuca Jr.

In its 2001 year-end report, the American Heart Association regarded among its top 10 research advances for that year the discovery that tissue engineering can grow heart parts by using stem cells from bone marrow and umbilical cord blood.

“Clearly, we have only begun to tap this fountain of possibilities,” says Dr. William Schmidt, CureSource’s medical director. “What the future holds is but a brief discovery away.”

Founded by Lowcountry parents and physicians, CureSource claims to be the only South Carolina owned and operated umbilical cord blood stem cell storage bank.

The elder DeLuca touts LifeCheck’s metabolism patch as “the only one of its kind.” Developed by Dr. Paul Pottgen, a part-time Kiawah Island resident who has spent a decade researching diabetes and weight control, the patch measures how many calories the user is burning by sending a signal to a little receiver worn on the user’s belt. According to DeLuca, cable television’s Discovery Channel will air a story on the $200 patch this month.

“This is a potential $150 million business,” DeLuca says of LifeCheck. Through its affiliations with Atlanta investment banking house Croft & Bender and a California-based venture capital fund, DHE is raising $500,000 for LifeCheck’s marketing campaign.

Ken Roozen, executive director of the Medical University of South Carolina’s Foundation for Research Development, believes the scene is growing brighter for Lowcountry health sciences entrepreneurs seeking venture capital investment. “Opportunities are greater, and access to infrastructure is greater,” he says.

Roozen points to the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce’s ThinkTEC initiative, which provides resources and training for entrepreneurs through its Business Accelerator and FastTrac programs, Charleston Angel Partners investment group and MUSC’s growing biotechnology presence as among several reasons for local entrepreneurial optimism.

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