2017 August/September Issue
Leading Ladies: Andrea Kilmer
By Chelsea Sherman Andrea Kilmer, CPA, CFF, CGMA President & CEO of The ESG Companies...
Leading Ladies: Caroline Taylor
By Barrett Baker Caroline Taylor, RN President, Taylor Made Diagnostics, Inc. (TMD) In 1995, Caroline...
Leading Ladies: Christine Early
By Chelsea Sherman Christine Early COO of Habitat for Humanity of South Hampton Roads Christine...
Leading Ladies: Desiree Williams
By Barrett Baker Dr. Desiree “Desi” Williams, PT, DPT Director, William R. Harvey Leadership Institute...
Leading Ladies: Jacqueline Amato
By Leona Baker Jacqueline Amato Chairman and CEO of TowneBank Mortgage (Retired) Jackie Amato is...
Leading Ladies: Katie Collett
By Chelsea Sherman Katie Collett Morning Anchor at WAVY-TV Katie Collett’s day begins at 2:15...
Leading Ladies: Linda Johnson
By Barrett Baker Linda Johnson Mayor, City of Suffolk Linda Johnson chuckles when asked what...
Leading Ladies: Suzy Kelly
By Leona Baker Susan “Suzy” Kelly CEO of Jo-Kell Inc.; Member of Chesapeake City Council...
Leading Ladies: Toni Stubbs
By Leona Baker Toni Stubbs Region Vice President of Engineering and Operations for Cox Communications...
Leading Ladies: Tonya Chapman
By Barrett Baker Tonya Chapman City of Portsmouth Chief of Police Growing up in Arlington,...
Leading Ladies: Zena Cardman
By Barrett Baker Zena Cardman Microbiologist and NASA Astronaut Candidate Inspiration to achieve great things...
Leading Ladies
Coastal Virginia’s Fearless Females Are Breaking The Mold—And The Glass Ceiling—Through Successful Careers, Community Engagement...
Excellence In Leadership: Louis S. Haddad, Armada Hoffler
President, CEO & Director, Armada Hoffler Photos by David Uhrin Building Leaders from the Ground...
LifeNet Health Saves Lives and Restores Health
By Barrett Baker LifeNet Health was founded by Bill Anderson in 1982. The company was...
Magna Imperio Systems’ World-Changing Water Purification Process
By Jamie McAllister In 2009, Grant Page discovered a process to purify salt water that...
Sanyal Biotechnology Helps Find Treatments for Liver Disease
By Barrett Baker Sanyal Biotechnology was founded in 2015 by Dr. Rebecca Caffrey and Dr....
3 Science and Tech Companies Get Innovative in Virginia Beach
Coastal Virginia, and Virginia Beach in particular, is on its way to becoming a high-tech...
United Way of the Virginia Peninsula Announces Co-Chairs For Fundraising Campaign
United Way of the Virginia Peninsula (UWVP) announced Conway Sheild of Jones, Blechman, Woltz &...
Mermaid Factory
By Ryan Miller The Norfolk mermaid is officially known as a symbol and mascot for...
Cape Charles Businesswoman Wins ODU Business Pitch Competition
Jennifer Corcoran, owner of WineRX in Cape Charles on the Eastern Shore, has won the...
Array Digital to Build Website for Virginia Nonprofit
Array Digital has announced that the company will be giving away a new website to...
Atlantic Bay Partners With ODU Football
Atlantic Bay Mortgage is showing its support for student athletes and has agreed to a...
Langley Federal Credit Union Awarded Top Credit Union By SBA
Langley Federal Credit Union has been awarded as the top credit union for Small Business...
AccelerateHER®’s JuniperHER Project Empowers Women Entrepreneurs
By Ryan Miller Web-Based JunipHER Project Aims To Give Women Entrepreneurs The Support, Training And...
W.M. Jordan Company Breaks Ground On Newport News Tech Center
Developers and dignitaries gathered on site in Newport News on Aug. 24 as W.M. Jordan...
Chartway Federal Credit Union Donates $50,000 For Red Cross Disaster Relief
Chartway Federal Credit Union (CFCU) has donated $50,000 to American Red Cross Disaster Relief in...
Selden Market’s October Grand Opening
Downtown Norfolk Council announced that Selden Market has secured leases with 12 storefront tenants that...
Meet and Eat: Bite Restaurant & Catering
By Angela Blue Photos by Jim Pile Every now and then, we crave a simple...
Virginia Wesleyan Dedicates Greer Environmental Sciences Center
Virginia Wesleyan University debuted its new Greer Environmental Sciences Center on Sept. 7 with a...
Charles Barker Champions For Kids Rolex Watch Raffle
Charles Barker Champions for Kids charity foundation is hosting a special raffle for a new...
“HearSay” Host Cathy Lewis Keeps Things Organized On Her Desk
By Angela Blue Cathy Lewis is a planner. She organizes her time in 15-minute increments...
Vandeventer Black Attorneys Awarded As “Lawyers of the Year”
Three attorneys from the Norfolk law firm Vandeventer Black were awarded with the exclusive designation...
Virginia Wesleyan Included In U.S. News’ Best Colleges Rankings
Virginia Wesleyan University in Virginia Beach has been recognized by U.S. News & World Report...
Norfolk Entrepreneurs Set High Standards At Pendulum Fine Meats
By Jamie McAllister Photos by Jim Pile When Norfolk entrepreneurs Dylan and Dana Wakefield opened...
Virginia Wesleyan and Westminster Canterbury Partner For Lifelong Learning
Virginia Wesleyan University and Westminster Canterbury are partnering together to create a lifelong learning opportunity...
ndp and Free Agents Marketing Combine For Regional Impact
Richmond-based advertising agencies ndp and Free Agents Marketing (FAM) are teaming together to expand their...
By Barrett Baker
Sanyal Biotechnology was founded in 2015 by Dr. Rebecca Caffrey and Dr. Arun J. Sanyal who, over the last decade in his lab at VCU, created a proprietary isogenic (having the same or closely related genetic constitution) strain of mice to facilitate his research into non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and diabetes. In layman’s terms, this means Dr. Sanyal “built a better mouse” for testing various compounds to cure different types of liver diseases in people who drink little or no alcohol, as well as other types of liver diseases.
“Dr. Sanyal is the most important person in the NASH field today,” says Jonathon Marioneaux, director of facilities and operations for Sanyal Biotechnology. “He is to the field of liver disease and diabetes research what David Beckham is to the game of soccer, and I’m not overexaggerating that because he founded the company.”
Dr. Sanyal, who is president, chairman and chief medical officer for Sanyal Biotechnology, is the former chair of the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition at VCU, as well the executive director, education core, for the Clinical Center for Translational Research at VCU. He has served as chair of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) NASH Research Network and is the current chair of the Liver Study Section at NIH. He was a founding member of the American Board of Internal Medicine committee for Advanced Hepatology, and served as Digestive Disease Week (DDW) chair for liver programming and on the World Health Organization (WHO) advisory committee for viral hepatitis.
Sanyal Biotechnology was originally to be located in Chesterfield (near Richmond) after Dr. Sanyal partnered with Dr. Rebecca Caffrey, the company’s CEO, who spun the business out of VCU through their Innovation Gateway (tech transfer) where she was entrepreneur in residence. The VCU spinout was one of a handful of university startups to be named University Startup of the Year in a national competition in 2016. Fortunately for Virginia Beach, there were two things that lured the company away from Richmond and into Coastal Virginia. “The Virginia Beach Economic Development department recruited us to come here,” says Marioneaux. “Virginia Beach is building a Bio Accelerator, and we were the first company they recruited to get it going. We’ve also helped them recruit other companies to come here including OWL Genomics from Spain. The other thing that brought us here is we are now using Eastern Virginia Medical School’s vivarium. EVMS has some top-notch researchers in the field of diabetes, and the faculty and staff in EVMS’ Comparative Medicine department have been wonderful to work with. So, those were the two things that led us to Hampton Roads, and we have not looked back.”
Leading the way for others to follow, Sanyal Biotechnology is a Contract Research Organization (CRO) that serves the needs of clients looking for a physiological relevant model for their preclinical research into liver disease. The company develops customized studies to screen client compounds and provides expert interpretation of the data collected, as well as a variety of other services that are available based on their clients’ needs. Their primary customers are pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.
As with any startup, the biggest struggle was getting the initial funding together. The company has done some fundraising but is happy with the direction they are currently taking. “We’re still seeking a limited amount of working capital to support growth of our operations and are in a strong position to attract funding since we already achieved profitability in Q1 of 2017,” says Marioneaux. “It’s been a serious incentive to just keep doing what we’re doing.”
Bio At The Beach
VaBeachBio is an initiative developed by the Virginia Beach Economic Development office to bring the world’s leading innovators in healthcare, biotechnology, pharmaceutical development and healthcare delivery systems to Virginia Beach. They have partnered with Tidewater Community College to create a Bio Accelerator at the Regional Health Professions Center to provide specialized equipment and laboratory facilities until a permanent park can be built in the Princess Anne Commons area, right next to Sentara Princess Anne.
