Bioscience heavyweight returns to Phoenix

TEMPE – Alan Nelson has spent the last 40 years away from his native Arizona advancing science for the early detection of cancer.

Now he is moving his company with its state-of-the-art technology to downtown Phoenix in an effort to save patients from an almost certain, quick death from lung cancer.

VisionGate’s Cell-CT technology generates a high resolution, 3-D image of cells to detect cancer.

The company is focused on finding lung cancer before the patient is symptomatic. Otherwise, that cancer is almost always a death sentence.

VisionGate could entice other bioscience companies to move to Greater Phoenix, said Robert Green, the president and CEO of the Arizona BioIndustry Association.

“The fact that we have these cutting-edge technologies is a great draw for other companies that want to take advantage of that,” Green said.

The company’s move from Seattle to the Phoenix Biomedical Campus will be complete in a couple of months. Through a deal with Phoenix officials, other public researchers will be able to use the company’s technology.

The return home feels right for Nelson.

“It’s like magic for me. It’s time. All of my life vectors point this way,” said Nelson, 60. “It’s where I’m going to spend the rest of my professional career.”

VisionGate detects a cancer that has lethal consequences for many Americans.

In the United States, 164,000 people will die of lung cancer this year. That means 450 deaths per day with about 10 to 12 of those in Arizona, he said.

VisionGate’s technology collects a cough from a patient through a non-invasive procedure. The company creates an image of the cells. Data is sent to the primary care physician to be discussed with the patient.

“The one thing I’m certain of is we will be the first commercially successful company in the lung cancer arena,” Nelson said.

VisionGate’s advanced technology is covered by 51 issued patents with another 66 patents pending.

Nelson also has contributed advancements in detecting cervical cancer. He founded NeoPath Inc. while in Seattle, which became a public company in 1996.

The company developed AutoPap, the only FDA-approved, fully-automated instrument for the primary screening of Pap smears.

Nelson said he decided to move VisionGate because the Greater Phoenix Economic Council convinced him it could grow here.

Greater Phoenix has entrepreneurial vitality and economic opportunities that do not exist in Seattle, he said.

“Seattle used to have a reputation for being a good biotech community. They would like to hang on to that reputation but it is gone. It’s died as one of the casualties of this economy,” he said.

Arizona is working hard to help young companies achieve success, Nelson said. For example, Arizona has an angel investment tax credit that gives investors an incentive to take a chance on a biosciences company.

Seattle, and even California, lacks a similar measure, he said.

The Biosciences Roadmap is another “thrill” about returning to Arizona, he said.

The roadmap, a 10-year plan, was launched in 2002 after a study commissioned by the Flinn Foundation found that Arizona contained the necessary elements to be a global biosciences leader but needed to strengthen its research base and recruit more firms and jobs.

“That is a major economic driver for Phoenix and a vision that Phoenix should become a mecca for biosciences,” he said. “I think it can happen here.”

In addition to founding VisionGate, Nelson serves as the executive director of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University.

The institute, located at ASU’s main campus in Tempe, is a research facility with hundreds of scientists studying a range of projects from vaccines to cleaning the environment. The institute also is focused on commercializing technologies developed there.

Nelson’s entrepreneurial experience and business success is “critical” to leading the Biodesign Institute, said Green of the Arizona BioIndustry Association.

In the 40 years that Nelson was away, Greater Phoenix has grown up, he said.

“It’s so refreshing to come back and see that Phoenix has changed dramatically from a dusty little town as I knew it to a serious metropolis,” he said.

Nelson was born at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center in 1949.

As a Camelback High School student, he played in a rock ‘n’ roll band that competed against Alice Cooper, who later became known as the “king of shock rock,” in band battles.

He earned a doctorate in biophysics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1980. He served as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard, and the University of Washington before leading the Biodesign Institute at ASU.

Nelson and his wife, Sharon, have been married for 25 years. They live near Tempe Town Lake with two Dalmatians, Zack, and Maggie, who is a rare breed with red spots.

Nelson sees energy in Greater Phoenix.

“I don’t know if it’s Western optimism, but unlike other places that seem to be getting a feeling of a malaise, and depression, I just see a buzz here everywhere I look,” he said.

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By Rachael Myer
OpportunityGreaterPhoenix.com
April 29, 2010