FRI AM News: WisBusiness: the Podcast with Justin Byers, Axio BioPharma; WRA report highlights flat home sales, rising prices

February 21, 2025

— This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Justin Byers, founder and CEO of Axio BioPharma.

This Madison-based company is a contract manufacturing and development organization, with customers ranging from early-stage biotech firms to top-10 U.S. pharmaceutical businesses. It’s focused on drug substances and research materials such as specialty proteins.

“What’s really setting Axio apart is that we’re using AI at the foundation of the company, specifically we’re using AI in the process development cycle,” said Byers, who previously worked as a process development scientist.

He explains the standard approach for this process is “very time-consuming, costly” and he wanted to find a better method. By using AI to examine and integrate the data the company generates through its own manufacturing process, Axio BioPharma is skipping the iterative process development cycle, “saving years for our clients.”

After launching in August of last year and coming fully online in November, the company has hit the ground running.

“Kickstarting this year with over half a dozen programs already starting here in January, so we’re really happy, starting off the year very busy,” Byers said.

The business is still raising its seed investment round, and Byers sat down with dozens of investors at the recent J.P. Morgan Health Care Conference in California earlier this year.

“We’re already thinking ahead to what’s that next step, so our long-term plan is to build the company out here in Madison, and build out a large campus of several manufacturing buildings, where we can do more than just our current focus,” he said.

By this summer, Byers is targeting a ten-fold expansion of its production capacity at a larger facility and plans to hire up to four more scientists.

The conversation also touches on the state’s biotech and life sciences industry, related workforce development and more.

Listen to the podcast and see the full list of WisBusiness.com podcasts.

— Wisconsin homes sales in January rose only 0.6% over the year while prices jumped more than 10%, as weak inventory levels continue to hamper the market.

That’s according to the latest Wisconsin Realtors Association report, which shows 3,537 homes were sold in the state last month, compared to 3,515 in January 2024. At the same time, the median home price increased from $265,000 to $293,000.

Total statewide listings did increase 5.9% over the year — from 14,733 to 15,604 — but WRA says the state is still in a “strong seller’s market.” Chris DeVincentis, WRA board chair for 2025, said low inventories “generated strong price pressure” across the entire state, but increases were greater in more urban areas in the northeast and southeast regions of the state.

“Higher prices and higher mortgage rates really hurt first-time buyers who rely heavily on financing in their home purchases,” he said in the report.

The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose over the year, from 6.64% in January 2024 to 6.96% last month, the report shows. WRA President and CEO Tom Larson said “hopefully mortgage rates begin to fall” soon, leading to greater affordability and higher sales figures this spring and summer.

Still, he cautioned against drawing “too many conclusions” about the rest of 2025 based on January alone, as only 5% of annual sales typically occur in the first month of the year.

“However, it is good to see a modest increase in home sales to start 2025 even though affordability fell 12% compared to January 2024,” he said.

Meanwhile, homes are staying on the market longer as a result of that lower affordability rating. Over the year, the average number of days that homes stay on the market rose 8.9% from 79 to 86.

See the report and release.

— TitletownTech has announced a nationwide pitch competition coinciding with the 2025 NFL Draft in Green Bay, where startups will compete for a $1 million investment prize.

The venture capital firm, formed by the Green Bay Packers and Microsoft, yesterday rolled out details for the first TitletownTech Startup Draft. It’s seeking applicants leveraging “emerging technologies” in core industries for Wisconsin, including manufacturing, supply chain and logistics, agriculture, water, energy, digital health and sports.

Finalists in the pitch competition will participate in a “Startup Combine” in early April, where entrepreneurs will work with the VC firm’s team and other portfolio companies to develop their pitch and get feedback.

Before the first round of the 2025 NFL Draft, the TitletownTech Startup Draft will hold a “draft day” for participants on April 24, where the company leaders will deliver pitches in hopes of landing the $1 million investment. The pitch competition will be streamed online across social media and streaming platforms.

Green Bay Packers President and CEO Mark Murphy says the startup competition is “a natural extension” of the team’s commitment to fostering growth and opportunity.

“Our unique community-owned structure allows us to invest in initiatives like TitletownTech, which highlight Wisconsin’s strengths and create lasting impact beyond football,” Murphy said in a statement. “This competition is an exciting way to showcase the innovation and talent that will shape the future, making it a perfect complement to the NFL Draft as we highlight the next generation of game-changers on and off the field.”

The application deadline for startups looking to participate is March 16.

See more in the release.

— WARF is touting a new screening tool that can predict patients’ likelihood of developing age-related diseases.

The tool was included in the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation’s latest group of top licensing prospects in its health care portfolio. It was developed by UW-Madison radiologists Perry Pickhardt, John Garrett and Michael Kattan.

It relies on biomarkers captured by medical imaging techniques, assessment of various measures such as genetics, lifestyle and environmental factors to establish a “personalized, precise” analysis of a patient’s health.

John Garrett, an associate professor and director of imaging informatics in the university’s Department of Radiology, says the AI-based tool “is so powerful” because most Americans have undergone an abdominal CT scan by age 65.

“And so if you can make measurements like this automatically in the background, and then correlate them with different types of outcomes, you can help guide people into … better preventative care,” he said in remarks provided by WARF.

This “opportunistic screening” approach can assess bone and muscle density, fat distribution and more while a patient comes in for another reason, helping clinicians predict things such as cardiovascular health and risk of injury. By expanding on existing screening with AI-based “deep learning” tools, the new tool can compare findings with others in their demographic group.

“The idea is that many of these things may be reversible,” Garrett said. “So if you have a very advanced biological age derived from these markers … there may be medical or lifestyle changes that can be implemented to sort of help reverse that, which is very appealing.”

See more here.

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