Fast-growing cannabis test lab looks to spread into PFAS testing

TOM HENDERSON

Cambium Analytica LLC, a Traverse City-based company that has rapidly built up a large cannabis-testing business, is diversifying into testing for PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals that have become a growing environmental threat in recent years.

e company is building out a new 2,500-square-foot lab just west of the Munson Hospital campus and awaiting delivery of a mass spectrometer to test for PFAS and what are termed CECs, contaminants of emerging concern, chemicals and toxics that have been found in bodies of water that may cause ecological or human health impacts and are not currently regulated.

e lab is expected to be completed and open for business in July. at and other expansion e orts, including the buildout of a new cannabis testing facility in Massachusetts, are being funded in part by a funding round of $7.5 million that closed in January.

CEO Alex Adams says the company has done testing for 367 di erent processors and growers in Michigan since January 2022.

In March, Cambium hired Chuck Meek to be the manager of the PFAS testing division. From 2015-2020 he had been an adviser with Chicago-based Hacha Products Corp., which provided mobile on-site water-treatment systems for large industrial companies and utilities, and in 2019 was hired as a vice president at Chicago-based SolvePFAS.com, which did sample collection and testing on ground, surface and wastewater.

PFAS is the acronym for per uoroalkyl and poly uoroalkyl substances, a large and complex group of synthetic chemicals that have been widely used in consumer products around the world since about the 1950s. ey are used to keep food from sticking to packaging or cookware, make clothes and carpets resistant to stains and create re ghting foam that is more e ective.

ey are used in the aerospace, automotive, construction and electronics industries. PFAS molecules have chains of linked carbon and uorine atoms. Because the carbon- uorine bond is one of the strongest, these chemicals don’t degrade easily, and over time, they leak into the soil, water, and air.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, side e ects in humans include increased cholesterol levels, decreased vaccine response in children, changes in liver enzymes, increased risk of high blood pressure, decreases in infant birth rates and increased kidney and testicular cancer.

“It’s an existential problem,” said Meek, who said his team will test for PFAS in water samples and map PFAS in the environment, with a goal of creating mitigation and environmental solutions.

Adams and company President George Powell formally launched Cambium in 2018, “cambium” being the term for a layer of undi erentiated stem cells in plant tissue, the layer that promotes new growth. Michigan mandates marijuana growers and processors of oils and consumables test samples for heavy metals, pesticides, other foreign matter, molds and potency.

After a capital raise of $1.8 million from friends and family in 2019, Cambium opened for business in March 2020, just as COVID was hitting and about three months after recreational cannabis sales started in Michigan. After a slow COVIDcaused start, the business has thrived.

Cambium currently has 96 employees and Adams says the company has done testing for 367 di erent processors and growers in Michigan since January 2022.

It expects to add 10-20 to its cannabis testing business in Traverse City this year, will add ve employees for the PFAS lab when it opens and expects to have 10 there by the end of the year. Currently, construction is under way at a cannabis facility in Massachusetts, and Adams expects 20-30 to be working there by the end of the year.

Cambium has cannabis clients statewide, including the Upper Peninsula, and has technicians based in Detroit, Bay City, Lansing and Grand Rapids to collect samples for delivery to the Traverse City lab. Other customers deliver samples themselves.

State regulations prohibit the Traverse City lab from testing cannabis products from other states, but Cambium has begun diversifying to testing other products, including food, botanicals and nutraceuticals and claims clients in eight states, with a range from Florida to California. Adams said company revenue is now about 85 percent derived from cannabis testing. “A year from now, e audience also gets updates on tech-related news in the area and details on upcoming events, and business owners or leaders announce job openings and how to apply.

Now based out of the 20Fathoms business incubator just west of downtown, TCNewTech’s marquee event is a monthly pitch contest held at the City Opera House on Front Street in downtown Traverse City. About 200 attend the meetings, which are free and open to the public, and an additional 100-200 livestream the event, according to Christopher Nesbit, the organization’s event director.

Presenters from four or ve early-stage tech companies from around the state get ve minutes to make their pitches and ve minutes of question-and-answer. ose in attendance or watching remotely then vote on the winner, who gets a check for $500.

Attendees include investors from Northern Michigan Angels scouting out companies to do due diligence on, service providers and a tech-savvy audience happy to do a little networking.

Early-stage companies can contact Nesbit directly at chris@tcnewtech. org or apply on the organization’s website, tcnewtech.org.

Chuck Meek, NewTech’s president, is director of a laboratory being built west of downtown to test for and do research on PFAS, the so-called forever chemicals that have become a growing environmental threat.

His lab is a new unit and diversication project being built for Cambium Analytica LLC, a Traverse City company that tests cannabis for po- tency and purity for growers and retailers around the state. (See related story, this page.) e July pitch night is being held in conjunction with the Cherry Festival, which brings throngs to the area. e competition on May 9 is being held in conjunction with the second annual Northern Michigan Startup Week, billed as a celebration of innovation and entrepreneurship whose theme this year is water innovation. ere are a variety of events at venues around the city from May 5-11. All are open to the public. Some are free; some have a fee. ey include workshops, panel discussions, pitch competitions and networking opportunities highlighting the growing startup ecosystem in northern Michigan. For information, go to nmsw.co.

Meek said TCNewTech decided when it began doing pitch nights to open them to companies around the state. Having visited the area to make a pitch and meet the local tech community, some companies might decide to make the area home. e companies might also o er job or contracting opportunities for local techies and investment opportunities for local investors, Northern Michigan Angels.

In fact, the winners of the pitch nights in March and April were both from Marquette. Particularly interesting from Meek’s point of view, the March winner, MycoNaut LLC, says it is developing a technology that will use mushrooms to help break down PFAS. e April winner was Peninsula Produce, which wants to build out and operate a large facility for hydroponic farming.

Generally, the pitch events are held the rst Tuesday of the month. Two exceptions are this month and July, when they will be held on the second Tuesday.

Sponsors include TCNewTech; Spartan Innovations, Michigan State University’s research foundation; Michigan Technological University; Northwestern Michigan College; the Northern Michigan Angels; Traverse Connect, the local chamber of commerce; and 20Fathoms.

Contact: thenderson@crain.com (231) 499-2817; @TomHenderson2 we’ll be at 35 percent from cannabis, and that’s not because of a reduction in cannabis testing,” he said.

Tim Schuler is president and COO of Novi-based D&K Ventures LLC, which under the brand names of Cannalicious Labs and Detroit Edibles processes marijuana from growers, with the active ingredient THC it extracts going into such consumables as gummies, chocolate and honey that it then it sells to retailers.

Schuler said his company sells to about 400 of the 500 marijuana retailers in the state, with 32 of his 47 employees working at the 15,000-square-foot production facility in Pinconning.

Schuler has used Cambium’s Traverse City labs for the last three years.

Contact: thenderson@crain.com (231) 499-2817; @TomHenderson2

From Page 8

Or Jim Millar, the CEO of Atterx Biotherapeutics Inc., a transplanted company from Madison, Wis., who on another day in early April was awaiting delivery of a stand-up desk for his new headquarters in 20Fathoms.

For years, his family spent summers at their home on Crystal Lake while he stayed in Atlanta and helped run a private equity rm. In the COVID summer of 2020, Millar stayed in northern Michigan with his family. “I was keeping an eye on the entrepreneurial ecosystem that was thriving here. It was a strong ecosystem. I was fascinated by what was happening here.”

After he joined Atterx, a spino from the University of Wisconsin, in January 2022, he decided he would o cially move Atterx, an early-stage biotech that has licensed two compounds to ght antibiotic-resistant infections, focusing on urinary-tract infections in patients on catheters in hospitals, to Traverse City.

“COVID taught us we don’t have to be within four feet of each other to work together. I was drawn to what Casey has built here,” said Patterson, a native of Chicago who grew up spending his summers on Crystal Lake, near Frankfort. “I spent the last 20 years thinking, ‘How can I make what I do work in Traverse City?’ We’re starting to build a critical mass here. It’s not hard to get people to move to Traverse City.”

“Casey” refers to Casey Cowell, who in 2018, along with member of the Traverse City-based Northern Michigan Angels, raised $500,000 to launch 20Fathoms, named for the clarity of the water in Traverse City’s east and west bays, a fathom being equal to 6 feet.

As a kid growing up in Detroit, Cowell played hockey with Gordie Howe’s kids, Mark and Marty, and was the goalie on teams that won four youth national championships. While the Howes turned professional, he went to the University of Chicago, got an economics degree and founded U.S. Robotics in 1976 when he was 23.

It went on to become the dominant maker of computer modems in the world, created the Palm Pilot, went public in 1991 and was sold to 3Com Corp. in 1997 for $6.6 billion.

In 1996, Crain’s Chicago Business named Cowell as its executive of the year, and Business Week magazine named him one of the top 25 company managers in the world.

In 1991, Cowell and his wife bought a summer home in northern Michigan and eventually retired there. In 2016 Cowell founded Boomerang Catapult LLC to invest in area startups, helping diversify an economy that had been based on wine tours, beaches and golf in the summer and skiing and snowmobiling in the winter.

“It’s interesting. Ten years ago, most of the venture investment in the state was in Southeast Michigan. It was rare to see any investment go to northern Michigan,” said Frank Urban, a senior venture associate with both Red Cedar Ventures and Michigan Rise, two in- vestment entities a liated with Michigan State University.

“Companies are locating based on lifestyles, especially after COVID. People got used to working remotely and now they want to work in places like Traverse City,” he said.

Michigan Rise joined the funding round that brought Atterx to Traverse City. “Atterx has taken a really novel approach to solving a pervasive issue: catheter-associated infections in hospitals,” said Michigan Rise’s Matt Okoneski. another senior venture associate with both Red Cedar Ventures and Michigan Rise.

Okoneski said MediCool soon may become another of their portfolio companies.

Previously, the East Lansing-based funds invested in two other area companies — Promethient Inc. of Traverse City and FirstIgnite Ltd. of Elk Rapids.

Promethient was launched in 2017 after getting a seed investment from Boomerang Catapult. Promethient uses graphene, a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice, to make energy e cient solid-state heating and cooling materials.

In 2018, the company got what it described as a large though undisclosed equity investment from Faurecia Ventures, the investment arm of Nanterre, France-based auto supplier Faurecia, which now operates as Forvia in the U.S.

FirstIgnite uses arti cial intelligence to help university researchers nd corporations with problems their technologies can help solve. It has a database of more than 5 million academics and connects tech transfer o ces at universities with corporate relationship o ces.

“Bruce Patterson, Jim Millar and Je Rynbrandt recently arriving in Traverse City cements a health sciences cluster,” said Cowell. “Getting IncellDx and Atterx here and pushing to further launch MediCool greatly expands and empowers this economic community.”

Here’s a bit more on the three companies he mentioned:

HealthBio Therapeutics

Patterson is a 1985 graduate of the University of Michigan with a bachelor of science in molecular biology and microbiology; got his M.D. in virology from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern Medicine and was chief resident of pathology at North- western Memorial Hospital; was an associate professor and director of diagnostic virology at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California from 2003-2011; and from 2009 has been the CEO of IncellDx Inc., a small research and treatment company using something called single-cell diagnostics to treat cancer, immuno-oncology, and infectious diseases such as long-COVID.

In early April, he was in the process of spinning HealthBio out from IncellDx, had moved full-time to Frankfort west of Traverse City and had been meeting with potential investors, including Boomerang Catapult and the Northern Michigan Angels. Boomerang participated in a $3 million convertible note Patterson is raising to help fund the company while it meets with potential equity investors.

In addition to his undergraduate work at UM, Patterson has long had professional ties to the Ann Arbor community. At Incell, he both bought diagnostic equipment from and sold reagent chemicals to HandyLab Inc., a 2000 startup funded by future Michigan governor Rick Snyder.

And he also bought equipment from and sold reagents to Accuri Cytometers Inc., a maker o ow cytometers for cell analysis by biotech researchers.

Patterson said IncellDx began developing biomarkers in January 2020 for COVID after a visitor to China returned to California with the disease. “We were the rst to discover that longCOVID has chemical signatures that are di erent from COVID,” he said. e plan is to combine two current generic drugs, maraviroc and atorvastatin, into a single compound to treat long-COVID.

IncellDx currently has three patents issued and ve pending that cover using the generic drugs that would be assigned to HealthBio.

IncellDx has 24 employees. Patterson said it is unsure, yet, how many will become HealthBio employees. He said he expects HealthBio to have about 24 employees in a year, some from new hires.

He said the plan is to sell IncellDx in the next few months. “ ere’s a lot of interest in buying Incell,” he said.

Patterson said he hopes to begin trials before the end of the year. He said he hopes to nd a Michigan company to manufacture HealthBio’s drug compound. “We have every intention to go to market ourselves. We’re not doing this to sell the company. e interest is to build it and run it.”

MediCool Technologies Inc.

MediCool, a spino from the Mayo e company also raised a funding round of $750,000 from friends and family in 2020, negotiated a convertible note of $1 million in 2021 and began raising a $2 million round last year. Rynbrandt said the company has raised more than half of it, with Mayo Ventures, the investment arm of the Mayo Clinic, the largest shareholder. e NSF grants were to show that cooling works to stop A- b in animals.

Clinic in 2015, makes a small de brillator that cools heart tissue to help end episodes of atrial brillation (A- b).

Rynbrandt joined the company as president and CEO in 2019 after 14 years in a variety of leadership positions at Guidant LLC, a business unit of Boston Scienti c Corp. A 1993 graduate of West Point, after serving six years as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army, he got an MBA from the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University.

MediCool was awarded a Phase I small-business innovation research grant of $250,000 in 2017 from the National Science Foundation and a Phase II grant of $750,000 in 2018.

Rynbrandt said the company hopes to submit plans for human trials to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by the end of the year. e plan is to use its devices to stop A- b on patients during open heart surgery and to treat patients outside the hospital setting who are prone to A- b by attaching an external lead that cools an implanted debrillator.

MediCool is currently conducting patient trials in Argentina.

Now, the standard treatment for A- b is to administer a shock. “ e advantage of cold versus shock is, anyone who has been shocked for A- b, it’s super painful. When I was at Guidant, we had a de brillator that used shocks, but it was too painful and we had to abandon it.” e company’s chief technology ofcer is Dr. Paul Friedman, the head of cardiology at the Mayo Clinic. e chief medical o cer is Dr. Sam Asirvatham, a cardiac electrophysiologist at Mayo. ey are the company’s two co-founders and will remain at Mayo.

MediCool, which has received two U.S. patents and has four more in process, has four full-time employees and two part-time employees. Ethan Cox, an engineer, is also in Traverse City. Rynbrandt is hiring another engineer who will be based in Traverse City, too.

Rynbrandt was working remotely for MediCool out of his home in Maryland when COVID hit. He’d previously bought some property and a cabin in Kalkaska, a northern Michigan county east of Traverse City, and his four kids loved visiting it. So they moved. He worked out of his house in Traverse City when he rst arrived, then through the help of Cowell found an o ce in downtown Traverse City. Rynbrandt said feasibility trials for the FDA will take two years, with premarket approval trials to take three more, with nal approval to go to market if things go well in 2028.

He said that during the premarket approval process, the company will likely be a target for acquisition and the plan is to sell it.

Atterx Biotherapeutics Inc.

Millar, Atterx’s CEO, grew up in Virginia, then went to graduate school at the University of Chicago to get his MBA. “I planned to spend two years in Chicago, then go back east and do investment banking.”

His girlfriend, Laura, now his wife, told him about her family’s summer home on Crystal Lake in northern Michigan. “All I’d seen of the Midwest was the south side of Chicago and Gary, Ind., he said. One Memorial Day, they drove north. “I couldn’t believe the beauty,” he said.

Millar has been a principal in the Vine Group, a private equity rm, since 1998, and a principal in CVG Advisors, helping clients sell their businesses, since 2017.

In January 2020, Millar became interim executive o cer at Roswell, Ga.based CorMatrix Cardiovascular Inc., whose technology targets cardiac-tissue regeneration. After CorMatrix recruited a permanent CEO, he joined Atterx, whose name comes from the Latin word attero, meaning to destroy, weaken or impair.

Atterx has licensed two drugs to help ght antibiotic-resistant infections, primarily urinary tract infections during catheter use in hospitals. e World Health Organization has named antibiotic-resistant bacteria as the No. 1 health issue in the world.

One drug is licensed from the Baylor College of Medicine, the other from the University of Wisconsin. Atterx has three U.S. patents of its own and 14 international patents, in Europe, Canada, Japan, China and Australia.

Millar said the company hopes to begin combined Phase 1 and Phase 2 U.S. Food and Drug Administration trials in the fourth quarter this year. He said he closed on a funding round in January of $2.2 million and hopes to nish raising another $1.3 million by the end of June.

Atterx has three full-time sta .

Contact: thenderson@crain.com (231) 499-2817; @TomHenderson2

SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN PUBLICLY HELD COMPANIES CRAIN'S LIST |

Ranked by 2022 revenue ally.com

11 ROCKET COMPANIES INC. (12/31/2022) 1050 Woodward Ave., Detroit48226 313-373-7990; rocketcompanies.com

12 AMERICAN AXLE & MANUFACTURING HOLDINGS INC. (12/31/2022) One Dauch Drive, Detroit48211-1198 313-758-2000; aam.com

13 KELLY

21 UWM HOLDINGS CORP. (12/31/2022) 585 South Blvd. East, Pontiac48341 800-981-8898; uwm.com

22 UNIVERSAL LOGISTICS HOLDINGS INC. (12/ 31/2022)

12755 East Nine Mile Road, Warren48089 586-920-0100; universallogistics.com

23 SUPERIOR INDUSTRIES INTERNATIONAL INC. (12/31/2022)

Telegraph Road, Suite 400, South eld48033

25 GENTHERMINC. (12/31/2022) 21680 Haggerty Road, Northville48167 248-504-0500; gentherm.com

CEO & director

SOURCES:S&PGlobalMarketIntelligence,(Marketintelligence.spglobal.com)andSEC lings

NA = not available.

Want the full Excel version of this list — and every list? Become a Data Member: CrainsDetroit.com/data and consumer technology brands company consisting of personal

|ThislistofpubliclyheldcompaniesisacompilationofthelargestcompaniesinWayne,Oakland,Macomb,Washtenawand Livingstoncountiesthathavestocktradedonapublicexchange.Forcompaniesnotonacalendar scalyear,revenueandnetincome guresareforthemostrecentlycompleted scalyear.52-weekhighsandlowsareforperiodendingMay3,2023.

GREATER MICHIGAN PUBLICLY HELD COMPANIES CRAIN'S LIST |

Ranked by 2022 revenue

1 DOW INC. (12/31/2022) 2211 H.H. Dow Way,Midland48674 989-636-1000;dow.com

2 WHIRLPOOL CORP. (12/31/2022) 2000 North M-63,Benton Harbor49022-2692 269-923-5000;whirlpoolcorp.com

3 STRYKER CORP. (12/31/2022) 2825 Airview Blvd.,Kalamazoo49002 269-385-2600;stryker.com

4 KELLOGGCO. (1/1/2023) One Kellogg Square,Battle Creek49016-3599 269-961-2000;kelloggcompany.com

5 JACKSON FINANCIALINC. (12/31/2022) 1 Corporate Way,Lansing48951 517-381-5500;jackson.com

6 SPARTANNASH CO. (1/1/2023) 850 76th St., S.W.,Grand Rapids49518-8700 616-878-2000;spartannash.com

7 UFP INDUSTRIES INC. (12/31/2022) 2801 East Beltline, N.E.,Grand Rapids49525 616-364-6161;ufpi.com

9 PERRIGO CO. PLC (12/31/2023) 515 Eastern Ave.,Allegan49010 269-673-8451;perrigo.com

10 MILLERKNOLL INC. (FORMERLY HERMAN MILLER INC.) (5/2022) 855 E. Main Ave., PO Box 302,Zeeland49464 616-654-3000;millerknoll.com

11 STEELCASE INC. (2/2023) 901 44th St. SE,Grand Rapids49508 616-247-2710;steelcase.com

12 WOLVERINE WORLD WIDE INC. (1/1/2022) 9341 Courtland Drive N.E.,Rockford49351 616-866-5500;wolverineworldwide.com

13 LA-Z-BOYINC. (4/2022) One La-Z-Boy Drive,Monroe48162 734-242-1444;la-z-boy.com

14 GENTEX CORP. (12/31/2022) 600 North Centennial St.,Zeeland49464 616-772-1800;gentex.com

15 HAGERTY INC. (12/31/2022) 121 Drivers Edge,Traverse City49684-4203 800-922-4050;hagerty.com

24

FENTURA FINANCIAL INC. (12/31/2022) 175 North Leroy St.,Fenton48430 810-629-2263;fentura.com

KEWEENAW FINANCIAL CORP. (SUPERIOR NATIONAL BANK) (12/31/ 2022) 235 Quincy St.,Hancock49930 906-482-0404;snb-t.com

25 CNB COMMUNITY BANCORPINC. (12/31/2022) 1 S. Howell St.,Hillsdale49242 517-437-3371;cnbb.bank

SOURCES:S&PGlobalMarketIntelligence,(Marketintelligence.spglobal.com)andSEC lings |ThislistofpubliclyheldcompaniesisanapproximatecompilationofthelargestcompaniesheadquarteredinMichiganoutsideof Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw and Livingston counties that have stock traded on a public exchange. 52-week highs and lows are for period ending May 3,

NA = not available. Want the full Excel version of this list — and every list? Become a Data Member: CrainsDetroit.com/data