AUB starts U.S.-based company for research on cardiovascular disease

In a MedTech first for the Mediterranean country of Lebanon, a team from the American University of Beirut (AUB) has established a biotech corporation in the U.S. devoted research on biomarkers for cardiovascular disease.

The school told Inside Telecom that team physicians and scientists from AUB have founded the first US-based biotech S-Corporation, Teucer Biotech Inc., centered on an AUB-generated original invention.

Teucer Biotech Inc. is founded around U.S. Patent 10,801,066 issued for the “Determination of risk for development of cardiovascular disease by measuring urinary levels of podocin and nephrin messenger RNA,” with patent positions also issued in Canada, Europe, and Australia.

“We believe we have uncovered a novel clinical biomarker which predicts the development of adverse cardiovascular outcomes (hypertension, acute coronary syndrome, stroke, dementia, peripheral vascular disease, and others) much earlier and with substantially greater prediction power than the earlier currently employed risk predictor, namely “moderate albuminuria (increase albumin in urine),” said Dr. Kamal Badr, AUB professor of internal medicine.

An S-Corporation is akin to a limited liability company or partnership. In general, the corporation itself does not pay any income tax but rather any gain or losses are divided among the partners or shareholders who are then responsible for payment as an individual income tax.

Along with AUB, the company is owned by co-founders Kamal Badr; Assaad Eid, associate professor of anatomy and molecular medicine; Robert Habib, former AUB faculty member and current director of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons Research Center, Chicago, IL, USA; and Joao Lima, professor of cardiology, radiology, and epidemiology, Johns Hopkins University.

Additionally, Dr. Yousif Asfour, chief innovation and transformation officer, represents AUB on Teucer’s Board of Directors, which is chaired by Professor Badr.

“We contend that our findings, once validated across large populations and disease states, will significantly reduce the global burden of cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the world, by providing a more robust and reliable indicator for pre-clinical systemic vascular injury many years prior to overt cardiovascular events, thereby triggering much earlier behavioral and pharmacological interventions,” added Dr. Badr.

On March 31, 2021, Drs. Kamal Badr, Assaad Eid, and Yousif Asfour presented AUB President Fadlo Khuri with the stock certificate representing AUB’s part ownership of Teucer Biotech Inc.