A preview of the emerging health care companies profiled in the current issue of Start-Up. This month's profile group, "Despite Challenges, Congestive Heart Failure Draws A Crowd," features profiles of miRagen, NellOne Therapeutics, Phrixus Pharmaceuticals and Sorbent Therapeutics. Plus these Start-Ups Across Health Care: Ambicare, Anulex Technologies, NeoTract and Sistemic.

Across the industry, cardiovascular R&D budgets are shrinking, and in some cases, practically disappearing. Some large companies are de-emphasizing the cardiovascular space, citing factors ranging from the size and high expense of clinical trials to the challenge of proving benefit when most experimental therapies are tested in tandem with current standards of care. Nonetheless, for those companies still willing to venture into the cardiovascular arena, congestive heart failure (CHF) offers a huge, lucrative indication to pursue. Several start-up firms are targeting CHF and related conditions by a variety of mechanisms, including polymer therapeutics, microRNA targeting and gene therapy. In this issue, we profile four such start-ups: miRagen Therapeutics, NellOne Therapeutics, Phrixus Pharmaceuticals and Sorbent Therapeutics.

NellOne Therapeutics Inc. believes it can help patients restore muscle mass and function thanks to a gene called Nell-1. If early studies bear out, the company’s research could yield protein therapeutics capable of regenerating muscle around joint replacements and even in hearts damaged by heart attacks. An in vitro study of heart muscle cells showed the protein could protect those cells and prevent them from dying in the very kind of low-oxygen situation that typifi es the conditions that heart muscle cells encounter during a heart attack. NellOne has chosen to develop its technology as a wound-healing therapy initially, because that research is farthest along and the path to market is shorter than for a cardiovascular indication.

In Vivo briefly describes these recently founded companies: B3Bio, Exos Corp., Horizon Discovery, Isis Biopolymer, nanoTherics, NellOne Therapeutics and Quanterix.