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Vision
Upaya Pharmaceuticals, LLC is a St. Louis, Missouri (USA) based company inspired to solve important health-care challenges through the real world application of our new SynAmp Technology™.
From the Sanskrit word for “Cure,” Upaya Pharmaceuticals is driven to fulfill the promise of its name.
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MissionAt Upaya Pharmaceuticals, LLC our mission is to develop and commercialize new drugs that revitalize existing antibiotics for the treatment of antibiotic resistant infections. Our competitive SynAmp Technology™ provides a new platform for drug discovery and development. Motivated to provide better therapeutic solutions to patients, our team is impelled to develop a portfolio of pre-clinical and clinical combination antibiotics to solve this critical healthcare challenge caused by resistant bacteria.
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Technology
SynAmp Technology™
Our SynAmp Technology™ utilizes a new class of synthetic amphiphiles that typically have a molecular weight between 400 and 1500, with unique structures, sizes and functions. Upaya can develop these synthetic molecules into a broad range of structures aimed at diverse molecular targets. This provides a competitive edge over discovered natural products and proteins. Upaya has established a library of two sub-classes of molecules that provides a platform to develop new drugs to address present and future healthcare challenges and medical needs.
Products
Using our SynAmp Technology™, Upaya is focused on developing innovative compounds that re-sensitize bacteria to the antibiotics to which they are resistant. In the U.S., hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) is one of the most common types of infection. Pneumonia causing Gram-negative bacteria such as K. pneumonia, E. coli and P. aeruginosa are resistant to most antibiotics. This resistance is caused by a mechanism in which their “efflux pumps” can pump out the antibiotic, preventing it from killing the microbe.
The Upaya Solution.
“Bacteria resistant to antibiotics caused 2 million illnesses
and 23,000 deaths in the United States alone.” CDC, 2013Our new class of drugs has shown the ability to inhibit the activity of efflux pumps in the antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. The combination of the existing antibiotics with our drug candidates enhance the antibiotic’s potency by up to 30-fold – even though the bacterium is resistant to that antibiotic. Our drug candidate will provide a non-oral treatment for patients in hospitals that are suffering from life threatening infections. Our pre-clinical pipeline covers a broad range of therapeutic applications including hospital acquired pneumonia, urinary tract infections, tuberculosis, etc.
Upaya Pharmaceuticals is developing a new technology that:
• Significantly increases antibiotic potency, and
• Recovers antibiotic activity in resistant bacteria
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Upaya Pharmaceuticals Team
George W. Gokel, PhD (Chief Executive Officer). Dr. Gokel has more than 40 years of academic and pharmaceutical industry experience in the field of drug delivery and chemical biology. He received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Southern California. He worked briefly at Dupont Central Research and then held faculty positions at Penn State, University of Maryland, University of Miami, The Washington University School of Medicine, and is now a Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Nanoscience at University of Missouri-St. Louis. He has authored more than 450 publications and is a named inventor on 15 issued patents in the fields of chemical biology, organic chemistry and drug delivery.
Dr. Gokel also has extensive experience as an expert witness in pharmaceutical litigation cases and as a scientific adviser for chemical and pharmaceutical companies for more than 30 years.
Saeedeh Negin, Ph.D. (Director of Research). Dr. Negin received the B.S. and M.S. degrees (physical chemistry) in Iran and has several years of industrial research experience. She studied various mechanisms and the optimization of catalytic reactions in a research and technology company before moving to the United States. She received the Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and is currently a postdoctoral research associate in the laboratory of Dr. George Gokel. She is also a member of the Center for Nanoscience at UMSL.
Dr. Negin’s expertise ranges from analytical chemistry to biochemistry and is focused on the study of the membrane behavior of synthetic amphiphiles that can mimic the function of natural protein channels. She is currently studying the use of synthetic amphiphiles in critical drug delivery applications.
Her work has resulted in more than a dozen publications and patent application related to Upaya’s basic technology. She received the annual outstanding graduate student award from the Department of Chemistry and the Ceil DeGutis award for research excellence in the Center for Nanoscience. She was also honored with the UMSL Graduate School Dissertation Fellowship Award.
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Mohit B. Patel, M.Sc. (Director of Business Development). Mr. Patel received a M.S. degree in Biochemistry & Biotechnology in 2012. During this time he co-founded a biotechnology startup company focused on commercializing a gene delivery technology. Here he gained a yearlong experience in performing market research, developing a business model, team development and fundraising. He is familiar at identifying key medical needs and developing a technology/startup company to address it. Mr. Patel is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Cell and Molecular Biology at University of Missouri-St. Louis. His research expertise includes microbiology, biochemistry and antibiotic resistance. He has developed numerous biomedical and agricultural applications for novel synthetic molecules, has co-authored 7 publications and 3 patent applications, including co-inventing Upaya’s basic technology.
Michael R. Gokel, B.S.E.E. (Director of Operations). received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering with a minor in mathematics and equivalent minors in computer engineering and chemistry. After University, he considered pursuing an advanced degree in Chemistry but decided to gain non-academic experience as a general manager of a Jimmy Johns franchise in Columbia, Missouri. His actual business experience organizing a workforce, maintaining stock, handling logistics, and managing income and revenue records brings important practical experience to the team. He doubles as a chemical biologist and has been intimately involved with antimicrobial studies as well as handling operations and records.
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Board of Advisors
Nasser Arshadi, PhD is a professor of finance and finance department chair at the University of Missouri - St. Louis. He received his Ph.D. in financial economics from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. He has published extensively in leading economics and finance journals on capital markets and the microeconomics of corporations with an emphasis on assessing and managing risk. He has published two books on financial intermediation (Prentice Hall) and insider trading (Kluwer Academic Publishing). Currently, he is a senior editor of Technology and Innovation, the journal of the National Academy of Inventors. He also serves on the editorial board of Public and Municipal Finance. He has served as an economist and policy analyst at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, DC, and as a consultant to the American Bankers Association (Washington, DC), Treasury Management Association (Washington, DC), Securities Industry Automation Corporation (NYC), Deutsche Financial Services (St. Louis), and Commerce Bancshares (St. Louis). He was a member of the board of directors of the Center for Emerging Technologies (CET) and served on its executive committee.
William B. Simon, MS, MBA is a consultant to engineering and medical startups, and is an SBIR reviewer for the National Science Foundation. He has extensive business and business development experience. From 2015-2021, he was CEO of Traxxsson, St. Louis, MO. He was Vice President and Chief Operating Office, Center for Emerging Technologies, St. Louis, MO, for 14 years. He has worked as a Tech Transfer Representative, Eastern Missouri, NASA, through Texas A&M and Johnson SC and as a consultant to St. Louis County Economic Development Agency and Small Business Incubators. He served as Vice President, of Lockett, McNearney and Roberts, (M&A), St. Louis, MO and as Market Manager of pharmaceutical production aids worldwide, Petrolite, St. Louis, MO (now Baker Hughes, Houston, TX). He also served as Director of Marketing, Hunter Engineering, St. Louis, MO.
Dr. Matthew MacEwan is the Founder and Chief Science Officer of Acera Surgical, Inc.; a bioscience company located in St. Louis, Missouri developing synthetic electrospun matrices for regenerative medical applications. Over the past ten years, Matthew has built Acera Surgical from a university-licensed platform technology to an operating medical device company offering the first synthetic electrospun matrices for use in soft tissure repair. Prior to founding Acera Surgical, Inc., Matthew served as an MD/PhD Candidate at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. Matthew's experience in basic science research spans the fields of applied nanotechnology, neural engineering, polymer biuomaterials, and regenerative medicine, with over 60 published peer-reviewed research articles.
Gregory C Mollett, JD is a commercial litigator and his practice includes extensive experience in real estate and environmental litigation. Greg has counseled franchisors and franchisees in forming, structuring, negotiating and implementing franchise relationships. As a litigator, Greg has represented business in complex tort, contract, breach of fiduciary duty, tortious interference, non-competition, restrictive covenant, licensing, UCC sales, Magnuson-MOss warranty claims, stock transfer disputes, asset sale disputes and shareholder litigation. He has represented small start-up companies, regional companies and Fortune 250 corporations. His commercial practice is regional in scope, and he has brought and defended suits in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Arkansas, Kansas and Iowa.
William E. Rolland, MD is an infectious Disease Specialist in Columbia, Missouri. He graduated with honors from University of Missouri, Columbia School of Medicine in 1989, having more than 35 years of diverse experiences, especially in infectious disease and internal medicine. Dr. Roland is affiliated with University of Missouri Health Care as an infectious disease specialist. Throughout his career, he has been involved in numerous clinical trials.
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Contact Us
For more information, contact us:
Upaya Pharmaceuticals, LLC
Mail
1817 Stenton Path
Chesterfield, MO 63005
E-mail
patelm@upayapharm.comPhone
(314) 516-4607
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News
July 2013
Upaya Pharmaceuticals, LLC co-founder Mohit B. Patel honored by St. Louis Business Journal as one of the Top 30
under 30 Business Leaders.
http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/blog/2013/06/announcing-the-2013-class-of-30-under.html
July 2014
Upaya Pharmaceuticals, LLC co-founder Dr. George W. Gokel receives Fast Track grant from University of Missouri
St. Louis for the commercialization of the technology.
http://blogs.umsl.edu/news/2014/07/28/projects-funded/
November 2014
Upaya Pharmaceuticals, LLC presents at StartUp Connection Venture Showcase.