I-Corps alumni company OWiC Technologies has been awarded a $2.35 million Fast-Track SBIR grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). OWiC is developing a light-powered chip platform that enables faster, high-throughput chemical synthesis for small-molecule drug discovery.
The funding will support the commercialization of SPECS (Smart Photoelectronics for Electrochemical Synthesis), OWiC’s breakthrough platform designed to accelerate the discovery of new small-molecule drugs. OWiC’s SPECS technology are tiny chips that fit into the same plastic well plates researchers already use. When exposed to visible light, SPECS generate small electric currents that drive chemical reactions inside each well, enabling high throughput electrosynthesis without the need for specialized equipment or expertise. This makes it dramatically easier for researchers to explore new compounds and streamline the early stages of drug discovery.
As a Ph.D. student at Cornell University, founder Alejandro Cortese completed an I-Corps regional course in 2018 and participated in the National I-Corps Teams program in 2020. Through I-Corps, Cortese conducted more than 100 customer discovery interviews to evaluate the market need for the innovation.
After I-Corps, OWiC joined the Praxis Center for Venture Development, Cornell’s business incubator for physical sciences startups. The team also received support from the SBIR/STTR Assistance Program, including matching funds to hire a qualified grant writer to help them craft their successful SBIR application.
Before winning the Fast-Track grant, OWiC secured two SBIR awards from the National Science Foundation — a $225,000 Phase I grant in 2020 and a $999,885 Phase II grant in 2023.
The new funding will enable OWiC to further develop and refine SPECS, scale the technology for high throughput testing, integrate software control systems, and pilot the platform in academic research labs for real-world validation. By the end of the project, OWiC aims to bring SPECS to market as a transformative tool that opens the door to faster, cleaner, and more cost-effective drug discovery.