NovaXS Biotech

Hate the pain and discomfort that comes with self-injected medications?

So do eighty percent of the twenty-one million people worldwide who require daily injections — whether related to diabetes or allergy treatment, or infertility and regenerative medicine solutions. Globally, the injectable drug market is valued at more than $624 billion.

NovaXS is developing an alternative to painful injections. It’s created a smart needle-free injection system that simplifies the medication self-administration process. This system eases the burden of daily injections and makes it more likely patients stick with their assigned treatment. A mobile platform works in concert with this system to enable patients to track their treatments and report any side effects they experience.

Though its system is still in development, NovaXS has already achieved notable progress:

It’s raised more than one million dollars from prominent investors like Baxter International (NYSE: BAX), a twenty-five billion-dollar healthcare company; Courtyard Ventures, the venture-capital arm of the University of California, Berkeley; and mHUB Impact Fund, a fifteen-million-dollar venture fund investing in emerging product startups, and affiliated with mHUB, one of the largest hardware manufacturing centers in America.

Additionally, the company completed notable startup accelerator programs including Berkeley Skydeck, NSF I-Corps, and the mHUB MedTech Accelerator, and signed eight Letters of Intent with healthcare clinics. Its system was also featured in Forbes and TechCrunch, and even named a “Top 6 Drug Delivery in 2022.”

These days, remote therapeutic monitoring, or RTM, is a popular approach to healthcare. For millions of patients treating issues like diabetes, allergies, and fertility issues, this means having to self-administer medications via daily injections.

The problems here, however, are three-fold:

Needle Phobia: To start, eighty percent of patients prefer an alternative solution to self injections. Needles often cause psychological stress, along with pain and skin irritation.

Complicated Treatment Management: Managing the self-injection process — from drug preparation and administration, to treatment monitoring — can be complicated.

Lack of Treatment Monitoring — There is an addressable information gap between providers and patients in remote healthcare setting, which leads to a high administration error rate and low therapy adherence rate.

These problems are why NovaXS has created a needle-free injection system. This system enables patients to draw medications from a vial, expel an air bubble in the cartridge, verify the dosage volume, and administer the medications virtually pain-free.

Rather than a needle, NovaXS’s injector administers a narrow stream of medication that penetrates the skin in less than a second. Not only has this method shown to reduce discomfort, but it also has a better medication absorption rate than traditional needles.

In addition to this system is the NovaXS mobile app, which provides a treatment calendar, injection setting preferences, and side-effect reporting.

Unlike competing products, NovaXS’s system features adjustable dosages, automatic medication loading, and treatment adherence tracking features. The company has four patents pending, which protect key technologies like its automatic medicine drawing and air expelling system, external motor loading base station, and vertical alignment and safety lock.

Initially, NovaXS will target the nearly twenty-five-billion-dollar market for infertility. It then aims to expand to sectors like diabetes, weight loss, regenerative medicine, and allergy treatment.

To generate revenue, the company plans to license its technology to businesses, and sell its system directly to consumers.

NovaXS has completed prototypes of its system, and has even generated minimal revenue from sales of its mobile software. The company aims to fully launch its device by Q2 2024.

Team Background

Alina Su - Co-Founder & CEO

Alina began her career as an R&D project manager with Cellular Biomedicine Group, a China-based biotech company. She then was a laboratory researcher with Sorrento Therapeutics, a biotech company focused on tumor shrinkage.

From there, she joined Black Flag Creative, a data analysis company focused on the healthcare space, as a data scientist. She then was a business analyst with IQVIA, a healthcare company focused on analytics and clinical research.

More recently, Alina was a researcher at QB3, an innovation hub affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley concentrating on the life-sciences industry. After that, she was a healthcare-industry specialist with The Economist Intelligence Unit, an information-sciences company, and a Ph.D. researcher at Harvard Medical School.

She earned her Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from UC Berkeley and her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Harvard.

Haley Titus - VP, Clinical Operations

Haley has an extensive biotech background, including more than ten years in clinical-study design.

In addition to her role with NovaXS, she is Founder and Principal of Haley Titus Strategy, her own consulting business. Most recently, she spent seven years at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, serving as a neuroimmunologist.

Before that, she was a team member with SmartHleaht Catalyzer, a life-sciences company helping create innovations for hospitals and universities. Prior to that, she was Vice President of Clinical Operations with Neursantys, a medical-device company.

Earlier in her career, Haley was a doctoral fellow at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, as well as a research scientist at Wright State University’s School of Medicine.

She holds a Bachelor’s degree Zoology and Neuroscience from Miami University of Ohio, a Master’s degree in Anatomy from Wright State University, and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Cincinnati.

Jonathan Xing - Co-Founder & COO

Jonathan is a serial entrepreneur who’s achieved a successful “exit.”

Prior to starting NovaXS, he was CEO of Beijing FRO.G Sports Management, an organization that helped youth athletes train and create professional development plans. Before that, he founded Chengdu Zhu Xia Culture and Technology, a China-based company focused on socially-positive projects.

Early on, Jonathan co-founded WXS International Consulting, an angel investment firm focused on real estate, technology, and sports-related ventures.

He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern California and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Co-Investors

Courtyard Ventures

A VC firm investing in UC Berkeley-related startups.

Baxter International

A multinational healthcare company with a market cap of more than twenty-six billion dollars.

Newgen Venture Partners

A VC fund focused on emerging life-sciences startups.

Edward-Elmhurst Health

An Illinois-based healthcare company.