Business

Starting a Business


Founded in 2016 as a sole proprietorship by Darren Thompson, Peptidaho is a response to the perceived need for "not re-inventing the wheel". You don't need to pay a Ph.D. level chemist $100,000 annually to make NHS esters for your biologists. You need a Ph.D. level chemist to use their imagination to create ideas ex nihilo, if that is even possible. Neither does your company have to pay the outrageously marked up fees many companies charge just for turning carboxylic acids into activated esters. A lot of the "simple" chemistry has been farmed out over the Pacific to China and India, so that leaves the US with a knowledge vacuum. Peptidaho will offer consulting (on-site or via video chat), grant and manuscript reading and editing, and some technical writing. If you are concerned about your ip Peptidaho will sign a NDA, but science really is groundbreaking if authenticity remains, to this end Peptidaho seeks to connect research scientists, you are probably not the only one with the problem for which you are seeking consultation.


Peptidaho will also synthesize two chemicals: TPG-FLAG in collaboration with the University of Idaho's (UI) Harbor Center and OPD-succ NHS ester in collaboration with UI and Phil Dawson (TSRI) (see chemistry button). TPG-FLAG Dr. Thompson co-invented as a postdoc at The Scripps Research Institute in the laboratory of Professor Dawson. Now you cannot really invent a chemical, anymore than you can invent God or nature, it is more appropriate to say he found uses for them.

Dr. Thompson is also Adjunct Chemistry Professor at University of Idaho.

The key component to lifelong learning is passion, without that essential ingredient you may as well stay home and play XBox games. Dr. Thompson hopes to inspire the next generation of natural philosophers. Together, with his Board of Scientific Advisors, Dr. Thompson hopes the laboratories of Peptidaho offer a training center for young people that will funnel them into university science programs as fledgling entrepreneurs.


Why Idaho?


Peptidaho is located in the Sagle area of North Idaho. The forests are verdant, the wildlife abundant, the fishing outstanding, and the population is sparse in North Idaho. Biotechnology is not something you would normally associate with Idaho and perhaps that is the point. Located just 40 miles north of Coeur d'Alene, the University of Idaho's Harbor Center, and 80 miles northeast of Spokane, Sagle is not totally isolated. It is a short drive to North Idaho College which has a science department with a chemistry faculty.