James Keenan is the founder and CEO of Artenga Inc., a company developing advanced therapeutic and disease-targeting microbubbles. His company has produced microbubbles optimized for use with focused ultrasound to safely and temporarily open up the blood brain barrier for noninvasive, targeted drug delivery.   

Artenga and the National Research Council Canada co-developed a novel strategy to load biologics onto microbubbles with high, consistent loading using a clinically scalable, covalent linker. Currently there are no clinically scalable microbubbles loaded with large proteins, such as antibodies or neurotrophic factors, indicated for therapeutic use.

Keenan has put together a team of experts to independently investigate the non-invasive delivery of the neuroregenerative trophic drug CDNF to the substantia nigra and striatum and to publish and present the study results. He intends to advance Artenga’s microbubble technology (ISO13485 certified) to clinical use for Parkinson’s disease treatment and other serious unmet needs.