Harvard Spin-Off SciFluor Is Launched

SciFluor Life Sciences, a biotech firm focused on improving the pharmacokinetic properties of drugs, has launched with $5 million in first-round funding from Allied Minds. SciFluor is based on fluorination technology developed in the lab of Harvard University chemist Tobias Ritter, who is also the company’s chief technical officer. Ritter and colleagues have developed a way of introducing fluorine into a molecule without having to rework a synthetic pathway. SciFluor says fluorination can improve a compound’s metabolic stability, potency, binding affinity, and ability to cross the blood-brain barrier.