Category: Uncategorized

From Cocktail Napkin to $1 Billion

The recent acquisition of Fastcase-vLex by Clio for US $1 billion is more than a business transaction. It marks the moment when decades of purposeful innovation, guided by Fastcase and championed early by Spencer Trask & Co., converged to align artificial intelligence with the public good and open the law to everyone. A Spencer Trask […]

As a First Investor in US Dollar Coin, Spencer Trask Scores at IPO

NYSE CIRCLE IPO Banner

Strong IPO validates early discovery of the USD Coin by Spencer Trask and SeedInvest Spencer Trask & Co., the advanced-technology development firm known for discovering and backing transformative innovations, announced its 2019 sale of crowdfunding investment platform SeedInvest to Circle Internet Financial Ltd. has matured into a public stake following Circle’s successful initial public offering (IPO) on June 5. “The Circle […]

Food is Medicine

Spencer Trask Venture Good Measures Acquired by NationsBenefits, Bringing Personalized Nutrition to Millions Pioneering Evidenced-Based Solutions in Healthcare and Nutrition Spencer Trask & Co. discovers transformative ideas and helps make them practical, salable, and scalable to make a world of difference. Through two groundbreaking ventures—Health Dialog and Good Measures, LLC—the company has again demonstrated its […]

Vesselon Discovery Protects and Expands Drug Franchises

Drug maker is seeking strategic relationship to deliver unprecedented levels of efficacy by making tissues more receptive to drugs. GREENWICH, Connecticut, May 22, 2023 — In a major development, Vesselon has discovered how to protect a superior method of delivering drugs shown to be effective in more than 1,700 independent preclinical and clinician-sponsored human trials. Despite compelling […]

Spencer Trask & Co. Venture Fastcase Merges with Legal Intelligence Platform vLex

Photo credit: The New York Times Deal for Cash and Stock Organized by Oakley Capital. Advanced technology development firm Spencer Trask & Co. today announced the merger of Fastcase with vLex in a transaction funded by private equity firms Bain Capital and Oakley Capital.  The new venture provides a combined 3.8 million users in over […]

Fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried is a Pathetic Character and a Product of our Time

Credit: Ben Garrison, ©GRRRRGraphics.com via Reddit WeWorking the System By Bill Clifford — CEO, Spencer Trask & Co. Several weeks have passed since a spoiled millennial from the Silicon Valley has been exposed as one of the most prolific con men of the 21st Century. Sam Bankman-Fried (aka SBF) has allegedly perpetrated one of the […]

Investor Insights: Part Two

WeWorking the System By Bill Clifford — CEO, Spencer Trask & Co. This is the second of a series focused on unicorns whose tusks were shorn once investors and journalists exposed egregious operational malfeasances of messianic leaders who were peddling what turned out to be nothing more than a vision wrapped up in emotion and […]

Investor Insights: Part One

Theranos — From Industry Darling to Dead Unicorn By Bill Clifford — CEO, Spencer Trask & Co. This is the first of a series focused on unicorns whose tusks were shorn once investors and journalists exposed egregious operational malfeasances of messianic leaders who were peddling what turned out to be nothing more than a vision […]

The Genome Makes Us Human

Output from DNA Sequencer (credit: National Human Genome Research Institute) By John Essick April 25th was National DNA Day, which celebrates completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003. Spearheaded in part by the National Human Genome Research Institute, the global mission of this education-focused initiative is to bring together students, teachers, and the public […]

The Immune Response Corporation

Revolution in Immunotherapy

DISCOVERY – Non-infectious viral vaccines.

INNOVATOR – In the history of medicine, few figures have had as profound an impact on human health and wellbeing as Dr. Jonas Salk. His polio vaccine breakthrough was the culmination of centuries of research, dating back to Louis Pasteur discovering inoculation. However, Salk’s method was different. He found a way to protect people from viruses without giving them the very disease the vaccine was designed to prevent.

Using this no-infection method, Salk worked with Kevin Kimberlin of Spencer Trask to develop cancer vaccines and an immunotherapeutic to slow or prevent AIDS. They patented and conducted preclinical studies on a cancer vaccine that demonstrated a startling 90% protection against lethal malignancies. 

IMPACT – A fusion of dendritic cells and the cancer antigen, their technology formed the basis for the first FDA-approved cell-based immunotherapy. Over 40,000 men with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer have received the treatment, and it appears especially effective for African-American men who receive a 48% improved survival benefit compared to white men.

The team and facility making this immunotherapy also made clinical and commercial supplies of the first approved gene therapy, the CAT-T drug Kymriah.

The first approved cell-base immunotherapy and gene therapy prompted the FDA Commissioner to say, “New technologies such as gene and cell therapies hold out the potential to transform medicine and create an inflection point in our ability to treat and even cure many intractable illnesses.”

The noninfectious vaccine approach developed by Jonas Salk eliminated polio from the developed countries, his flu vaccine mitigated the effects of influenza for the past 75 years, and finally, the cancer vaccine developed at his Immune Response Corporation led the way to gene, cell-based, and immune therapy innovations that will impact human health for generations. In summary, Salk released the last step in enabling the most important preventative medicine – non-infectious viral vaccination.