Business & Bioindustry: Arizona’s collaborative ecosystem drives discovery and growth is the cover story of the August 2026 issue of In Business Magazine – Greater Phoenix.
Often referred to as biotech and bioscience, the bioindustry is a diverse sector including our biotech, medical device, diagnostics, and health tech sectors along with the healthcare systems and healthcare partners that delver them to patients.
RaeAnne Marsh, Editor-in-Chief of In Business Magazine, took the lead on the cover story that includes 11 vignettes from life science companies across the Phoenix metro.
John Shufeldt, served as guest editor for the edition. Dr. Shufeldt is a healthcare entrepreneur, investor, and founder and managing director of Xcellerant Ventures and Jetstream Venture Fund. With more than 35 years of clinical and venture experience, he previously founded national platforms that include NextCare, MeMD and Tribal Health. A dedicated serial innovator, Dr. Shufeldt recently established the John Shufeldt School of Medicine and Medical Engineering at Arizona State University, which welcomed its inaugural class of physician-engineers in July, 2026. Read his editor’s message
Sandra Watson, President & CEO of the Arizona Commerce Authority and Joan Koerber-Walker, president and CEO of Arizona Bioindustry Association, Inc., worked with Marsh as she crafted an overview of the breadth of Arizona and the Greater Phoenix Bioindustry that focused on its scope and impact. Read the cover story
The issue provides an insiders view of the bioindustry with stories from 11 of the most innovative companies operating in Metro Phoenix.
Flourishing Ecosystem: Foresightful Investment Pays Off
Annual Economic Impact of Arizona’s Bioindustry (2016-2023) – image: AZBio
by Joan Koerber-Walker, President & CEO, Arizona Bioindustry Association, Inc.
Home to one of the fastest growing bioindustry sectors in the country, Arizona is benefiting from almost 30 years of investment into developing an ecosystem that supports the discovery, development and delivery of life science innovations designed to improve the human condition.
Just as nature requires ecosystems that work together to sustain life, the life science industry, also known as the Biosciences, is built on symbiotic relationships that include science, business and a wide range of support infrastructures that bring these products and services to market. Dedicated researchers at Arizona universities and other highly specialized laboratories are where discovery happens. This is the beginning of a journey that includes product development, experimentation, clinical trials, regulatory validation, medical or market acceptance, and a complex distribution and payment structure that is unique to the United States.
As economic impact grows, so do the tax base and the overall economy of the state. That means more money for education, more money for roads, more money to make life better for people across Arizona. Read more.
Advancing Non-Invasive Neurocritical Care
by Elsa Chi Abruzzo, President & CEO, Anuncia Medical
To understand how Anuncia is impacting healthcare, it is important to understand who Anuncia is as a company and what we do. Anuncia is addressing a clinical problem that has existed for decades that significantly impacts the lives of patients and families living with a condition called hydrocephalus. Excess cerebrospinal fluids (CSFs) can cause dangerous pressure on the brain and skull, and specialty drains called shunts are implanted. The shunt drains the excess cerebrospinal fluid from the brain’s ventricles to another part of the body, usually the abdomen, where it can be absorbed. Unfortunately, shunts have been proven over a period of time to become clogged or blocked. This requires immediate hospitalization and “revision” surgery procedures. Read more.
Forging Ahead in Minimally Invasive Care
by Rima Alameddine, Worldwide President, BD Peripheral Intervention
The future of minimally invasive care is being shaped in Tempe, Arizona. While BD’s global purpose is to advance the world of healthTM, that mission comes to life through the work of local teams whose innovations help millions of clinicians care for billions of patients around the globe. An essential component of that effort is BD Peripheral Intervention (BD PI), a $2-billion business unit headquartered at Tempe’s I.D.E.A. Campus. Read more.
Innovating in Tissue Restoration
by Jaime Leija; Co-Founder, President & CEO; BioLab Holdings
Our company, BioLab Holdings, is a Mesa-based biotechnology and tissue restoration company focused on advancing innovation across the continuum of care. Through clinician-driven strategy, partnerships and commercialization, we identify, develop and deliver breakthrough technologies that restore tissue and improve patient outcomes. At our core, we develop products that provide multiple tools to treat difficult-to-heal conditions rather than relying on a single solution. Read more.
Targeting Therapeutics for Oncology
by Steven Potts, Co-Founder & CEO, Breakthru Medicine
Breakthru Medicine is a preclinical biotech developing multiple targeted therapeutics for oncology across a wide range of solid tumors. Breakthru’s team of veteran drug developers has collectively brought more than a dozen drugs to market and has advanced late-stage programs with the potential to transform outcomes for one of the most lethal forms of cancer. The team’s experience is Breakthru’s “superpower,” knowing when to keep pursuing a target, when to pivot, and when to eliminate a program — a capability that increases the likelihood of delivering meaningful new options to patients. Read more.
Ensuring Domestic Sourcing for Medicine Essentials
by Tony Quinones, CEO, Bright Path Laboratories
Bright Path manufactures essential medicines — the generic, small-molecule drugs that hospitals, clinics and pharmacies depend on every day — in Mesa, at our facility at Falcon Field. Most Americans don’t realize that the active pharmaceutical ingredients in the majority of these medicines are made overseas, which is why drug shortages have become a recurring crisis for American healthcare. Our answer to that problem is operating in Arizona. Read more.
Greater Phoenix Is Shaping the Future of Precision Medicine
by David Spetzler, President, Caris Life Sciences
Cancer remains one of humanity’s most complex challenges. For generations, physicians have made treatment decisions based largely on what they could see under a microscope, where a tumor originated and how similar patients responded in the past. Today, that paradigm is changing. We are entering an era where cancer can be understood at the molecular level, revealing the unique biology that drives each patient’s disease. At Caris Life Sciences, we believe every cancer patient deserves that deeper understanding because every cancer is biologically unique. Read more.
Translating Scientific Discoveries into Viable Diagnostics
by Kristen Oelschlager, Co-Founder & COO, Castle Biosciences
As one of Castle Biosciences’ three original founders, I have had the privilege of helping the company grow from a small, early-stage organization into a leading diagnostics company serving patients and clinicians across the country. Castle began operations in 2008 and established its first laboratory presence in Phoenix the same year. From the beginning, our goal has been to better understand the biology of a patient’s disease and turn that information into meaningful insights that help clinicians make more informed, individualized decisions about their care. Read more.
Manufacturing Biosensing Technology at Scale
by Ian Topic, Vice President of U.S. Manufacturing, Dexcom
At Dexcom, we make glucose biosensing technology that gives people living with and without diabetes real-time visibility into their glucose levels. For millions of people, biosensing technology transforms diabetes management and daily life by putting actionable data directly into the hands of users and their care teams. The shift from reactive treatment to proactive management represents one of the most important transitions happening in healthcare today. Read more.
Furthering Breakthroughs in Regenerative Medicine
by Mohammad Albanna, Founder & CEO, Humabiologics
Humabiologics is a Phoenix-based regenerative medicine company making human biomaterials more accessible to scientists, clinicians and product developers in regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, bioprinting, organoids, disease modeling and drug discovery. Our mission is to give researchers more human-relevant building blocks to develop better therapies and more predictive models of human biology. Many platforms still rely on animal materials and animal testing, even when the goal is to treat human patients. Humabiologics helps close that gap by producing native human collagen, gelatin, extracellular matrix products, bioinks and related biomaterials. Read more.
Translating Innovation into Impact for Ultra-Rare (and Commercially Underserved) Diseases
by Kiran Avancha, Co-Founder & CEO, PriZm Therapeutics
PriZm is a late-stage clinical biotechnology company focused on developing therapies for ultra-rare pediatric diseases, beginning with Allan-Herndon-Dudley Syndrome (AHDS), also known as MCT8 deficiency. Affecting fewer than 500 patients in the United States, the disease has historically received little commercial attention despite its profound impact on children and their families. Read more.
Advancing Non-Invasive Pain Management against One of Healthcare’s Most Persistent Challenges
by Tom Eisiminger Jr., President & CEO, Regenesis Medical
Regenesis was founded with a simple but meaningful mission: to improve quality of life by developing innovative medical technologies that help relieve pain. Today, we continue that mission by researching, designing, manufacturing and supporting energy-based medical devices that expand access to safe, non-invasive, drug-free pain management solutions for patients and providers.
Reprieve by Regenesis® is FDA-cleared to generate deep heating within body tissues for the treatment of conditions such as relief of pain and muscle spasms, including chronic pain associated with diabetic peripheral neuropathy, osteoarthritis, plantar fasciitis/fasciosis, lumbar pain and musculoskeletal conditions. Designed for at-home use as part of a provider-directed pain management plan, Reprieve provides clinicians with an additional non-invasive treatment option that fits within established clinical workflows. Read more.