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Light rain for several hours on Tuesday, backing off for the latter afternoon.
In 2012, a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher took the first steps toward inventing a treatment for patients with severe blood loss, such as gunshot victims and passengers in car crashes.
The United States Army took interest, believing the intravenous solution could save the lives of soldiers. The army gave the project $12 million.
In 2020, the initiative became its own corporation, Perfusion Medical. Now, it’s one of the most promising pieces of the booming innovation division at VCU and the burgeoning pharmaceutical industry in greater Richmond.
U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., toured Perfusion Medical’s facility at VCU on Monday, offering support and urging researchers to get their products across the finish line.
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From left, Perfusion Medical CEO Gerard Eldering and Martin Mangino, with Perfusion Medical and also a professor in the Department of Surgery at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, take Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., on a tour of the Sanger Hall lab at VCU on Monday.
Srirama Rao, VCU’s vice president for innovation, said the city needs to seize momentum and make itself a destination for medical invention.
“Richmond’s time has come to be the next innovation hub in the country,” Rao said.
At VCU, research is booming. The school passed Virginia Tech and became the 50th largest public college in the country for research. Last year, it conducted more than $400 million in sponsored scientific exploration.
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VCU has developed a drug to treat pancreatic cancer, recycled oyster shells into the Chesapeake Bay and enhanced the medicines that fight COVID-19.
Simultaneously, drug manufacturing has set up shop in the Richmond area. VCU’s Medicines for All rebuilds medicines with cheaper ingredients. Civica Inc., a nonprofit, is developing insulin that can be sold at a fraction of the retail price. Phlow Corp. secured a federal contract to build a stockpile of essential medicines.
The blood loss medication, called PEG-20k, was invented by VCU faculty member Martin Mangino. Independent doctors have called his invention a game changer, and animal trials have shown promising results.
There’s a $4 billion market for the medication, Perfusion Medical said. An estimated two million patients per year could benefit from it.
(From left) Martin Mangino, with Perfusion Medical and also professor in the Department of Surgery at VCU School of Medicine, CEO of Profusion Medical Gerard Eldering, and P. Srirama Rao, Vice President for Research and Innovation at VCU, take Colleen Nguyen, from Warner’s office, and Sen. Mark Warner on a tour of the Sanger hall lab at Virginia Commonwealth University, where Perfusion Medical Company is working to advance and commercialize a new life science technology that would address hemorrhagic shock and related medical conditions, in Richmond, VA on January 30, 2023.
When a patient experiences significant blood loss, a transfusion only solves half the problem. The patient’s cells swell up, compressing the capillaries and depriving the cells of oxygen.
Mangino’s saline solution, delivered as an IV drip, solves the other half. Trials in humans could begin next year.
Perfusion has raised $1 million in state, federal and private funding in the past year. It drives home a point Rao made Monday, that even if a VCU researcher can invent a significant treatment, the idea needs a big influx of cash to become a reality.
“We don’t do this alone,” Rao said.
The federal government gave $50 million to the collaboration of Medicines for All, Civica and Phlow, now called the Alliance for Building Better Medicine. It’s time greater Richmond capitalizes on that momentum, Rao said.
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In Congress, Warner is chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence. That body has become the de facto technology committee, he said, because its members can see the developments made by China and other adversaries and understand where the U.S. needs to invest.
Warner has three priorities for innovation in the U.S.: artificial intelligence, energy and biotechnology. The more Virginia can do to build up its biotechnology, the more he’ll try to secure funding, he said.
“Sign me up,” Warner added.
Now is the time to fund these ventures, the senator said, given the state’s surplus and the big allocations coming from the federal government.
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Earlier this month, the University of Virginia announced plans of its own to open a $300 million biotechnology institute. Biotechnology generally refers to the process of modifying an organism, such as a cell, into a machine for human benefit. Examples include insulin and cancer-fighting cells.
There will always be some competition for research dollars, Warner said. There’s good reason – the government doesn’t like putting all its eggs in one basket. But it’s key that colleges collaborate and limit overlap, the senator added.
Rao said VCU and UVa have differing strengths and will complement one another.
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During his conversation Monday, Warner gave a small pep talk to the researchers and start-up leaders: not every health venture is successful.
One local example, Health Diagnostic Laboratory, filed for bankruptcy in June 2015, after a federal investigation into kickbacks it was allegedly paying doctors to encourage them to use its services went public.
But not every idea needs to bear fruit. It just takes a small percentage to trigger significant growth.
“Success breeds further success, and that brings more funding,” Warner said.
PHOTOS: Recognize these Richmond-area places?
In October 1951, workers constructed a section of Forest Hill Avenue in South Richmond. The segment sits between Westover Hills Boulevard and Prince Arthur Road.
In December 1990, a Richmond Ballet dancer stretched before rehearsal of “The Nutcracker.”
In February 1953, Richmond Department of Utilities workers used a 65-foot hook-and-ladder firetruck to install new lights on Broad Street after attempts to secure other ladder equipment from private companies had failed.
In May 1954, Scoop sniffed around the pet food aisle at a grocery store in Richmond’s West End. The store offered a large selection of pet foods, a relatively new concept for the era. The accompanying article said: “Gone, apparently, are the days that Fido took the scraps from the table and liked them.”
In September 1942, members of Richmond Hotels Inc. donated typewriters to the War Production Board and the Office of War Information in response to an appeal for businesses to let the government have any machines they could spare.
In August 1981, children enjoyed outdoor recreation at Camp Happyland in the Richardsville area of Culpeper County, not far from Fredericksburg. The Salvation Army started the camp in the late 1950s to improve children’s health through exercise and proper nutrition.
In March 1971, a crowd estimated at several hundred waited outside City Council chambers at City Hall in downtown Richmond. Residents of the recently annexed Broad Rock area were protesting the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority’s proposal for low-rent public housing in the area.
In March 1969, a sign went up to mark the site of Henrico County’s first permanent designated library, on Laburnum Avenue near New Market Road. On hand were (from left) Varina District Supervisor Edwin Ragsdale, library board trustee Mrs. F.M. Vaughan, library assistant Virginia Liles and county libraries director David Rowland. The library opened in December 1970.
In June 1969, a Trappist monk at the Holy Cross Abbey near Berryville in Clarke County began his daily meditation. The monks spent their days balancing quiet prayer, spiritual reading and manual labor.
In June 1956, the Rev. Lawrence V. Bradley Jr. of Grove Avenue Baptist Church in Richmond and his secretary, Jean Bolton, got out the summertime heat beater: a simple cardboard fan. The pews were liberally stocked during the warm months because the church had no air conditioning.
In July 1959, the normally bustling downtown Richmond business district, including this stretch along Eighth and Main streets, was much quieter as motorists stayed home because of triple-digit heat.
In April 1966, Union Bag-Camp Paper Corp. officials oversaw manufacturing at a new plant in Chesterfield County. The facility produced millions of bags for supermarket chains and other clients on the East Coast. At the time, about 265 employees worked in two local company plants; the old factory at 13th and Canal streets in Richmond was open for limited operation until it was sold.
In March 1969, a sign went up to mark the site of Henrico County’s first permanent designated library, on Laburnum Avenue near New Market Road. The branch opened in December 1970. Posing with the sign were (from left) Varina District Supervisor Edwin Ragsdale, library board trustee Mrs. F.M. Vaughan, library assistant Virginia Liles and county libraries director David Rowland.
In August 1982, David Tidwell of Croaker posed with his girlfriend’s dog, Blazing Amber of Cinder, at the humorous “Norge Dog Station” at Norge Grocery on U.S. Route 60 west of Williamsburg. The sign had been put up seven years earlier, and the spot became a popular photo opportunity for visitors.
In March 1987, in preparation for new carpeting, the Dumbarton branch library in Henrico County had to remove about 80,000 books from shelves. About 50 people handled the first phase overnight — but restocking the shelves awaited.
This 1957 photo shows Collegiate School in the 1600 block of Monument Avenue in Richmond. The Town School elementary building was on the left and the high school on the right. In 1960, the Town School and the Country Day School merged, operating on the campus off River and Mooreland roads in Henrico County. It remains the location today.
In November 1970, a Richmond officer rode his horse by the police bureau’s new stables, which were under construction. The facility near Brook Road and Chamberlayne Avenue included eight stalls, a scrub area, a horseshoeing area and a tack room. The bureau had been looking for an established home for its horses since the mid-1960s, when the Virginia National Guard moved from the Richmond Howitzers downtown armory, where the horses had been stabled for two decades.
In March 1971, a crowd estimated at several hundred waited outside City Council chambers at City Hall in downtown Richmond. Residents of the recently annexed Broad Rock area were protesting the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority’s proposal for low-rent public housing in the area.
In November 1948, Army Lt. Charles D. Smith Jr. administered the oath to the first set of postwar draftees processed at the Richmond induction station at First and Broad streets. Several of the men were immediately sent to Camp Pickett in Blackstone.
In December 1938, Richmond Glass Shop had a new home at 814 W. Broad St., site of the old Ashland Railway Station. The shop, run by brothers Frank R. and A.G. Bialkowski, had glass of many types, and offered bath and kitchen installation, storefront construction and paint products.
In March 1979, corrections officer Howard Alexander held the homemade rope used by convicted murderer Michael Irwin Cross to escape from the State Penitentiary, then located along Spring Street in downtown Richmond. Cross was captured two months later after attempting to free a fellow convict who was being treated at Medical College of Virginia Hospital.
In June 1986, “Mr. Newspaper” greeted a young girl and her mother at a Richmond-area mall. The RTD mascot often traveled around town promoting the newspaper.
In July 1951, Alonzo Moore, 74, walked down a street in Cape Charles on Virginia’s Eastern Shore and blew his horn, alerting locals to his sale of the fresh catch of the day.
In July 1960, the Schellenberg family of Highland Springs prepared to have a bomb shelter installed in their yard, one of Virginia’s first privately owned radiation fallout shelters. The enclosure was designed to accommodate up to six people during a nuclear attack. The horizontal steel tank (rear) was 7 feet in diameter and 16 feet long. Once installed, the only elements aboveground would be a domed entrance and air filter and exhaust pipes.
In June 1979, Terry Woo set bricks for a walkway as construction of Kanawha Plaza in downtown Richmond continued. The $4 million dollar city-financed plaza linked the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond building and the Virginia Electric and Power Co. building.
In July 1951, two women enjoyed the white sand beach of Cape Charles on Virginia’s Eastern Shore.
In June 1968, workers welded boilers at Old Dominion Iron and Steel Corp., located on Belle Isle under the Lee Bridge in Richmond. At the time, Old Dominion’s owner was interested in expanding operations, and the city was interested in using the island as part of a James River park. The company’s history on Belle Isle spanned from before the Civil War to the 1970s.
In November 1972, after the remnants of Hurricane Agnes had washed out a bridge, a barge carried vehicles and workers across the James River from Tredegar Street toward Belle Isle in Richmond. A day earlier, a welder for Old Dominion Iron and Steel Corp. drowned after a boat carrying him and others capsized on the same route.
This December 1973 photo shows the front counter in Roaring Twenties, a new restaurant and nightclub on state Route 10 in the Hopewell area. It was designed to resemble a 1920s speakeasy, with features including an antique cash register, a diving girl and even a dining table from Al Capone’s Florida home.
In October 1969, cadets at John Marshall High School in Richmond posed with their ribbon-bedecked sponsors after an awards ceremony. The school’s Corps of Cadets was established in 1915 — it was the first military training program in a public school in Virginia — and disbanded in 1971.
In May 1989, a transformer exploded under the sidewalk on the Fourth Street side of the Richmond Newspapers Inc. building downtown. The ensuing fireball charred two cars parked on the street and sent flames up the side of the building. No one was hurt in the nighttime explosion, and delivery of the next morning’s Richmond Times-Dispatch (which was printed in the building) was only slightly delayed.
In August 1972, motorists approaching construction on Interstate 64 south of Bryan Park in Richmond were greeted by a robot signalman waving a bright red flag. “Silent Sam,” as the decoy was nicknamed, was used by the state Department of Highways to slow drivers as they neared workmen building an I-195 interchange and bridge near the Acca rail yards.
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