When patients undergo Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), the MRI technologist will often inject a contrast agent that makes organs and abnormalities like tumors more visible on the resulting scans. The most commonly used contrast agent contains gadolinium, a heavy metal that can cause skin, muscle and organ issues and remain in the body for years. That’s where Ferric Contrast, Inc., a research-stage pharmaceutical company and University at Buffalo spinout, comes in.

The company has created an iron-based, small molecule replacement for the gadolinium-based contrast agents currently used in MRIs. Ferric Contrast’s iron-based version produces images comparable to, or even better than, gadolinium contrast agents, while offering a safer profile for patients. This safety advantage could also streamline the FDA approval pathway, says Ferric Contrast co-founder Bradford La Salle.

“Because iron is naturally present in humans, the body has built-in mechanisms to regulate iron levels safely on its own,” explains La Salle. 

La Salle and co-founder Janet Morrow, PhD, UB professor and inventor, started the company in 2017 in a laboratory in UB BEP’s Incubator @ Baird, the only place in Western New York that offered lab space to startups. La Salle says the lab gave the startup dedicated space to engineer and manufacture its contrast agents, plus an environment that’s uniquely supportive for entrepreneurs. 

“Sharing space with other founders definitely has benefits,” says La Salle. “The other founders are sometimes the only people who understand what starting a deep-tech company is like. It’s been valuable to have hallway conversations when we run into a challenge.”

Since the company’s launch, UB’s Business and Entrepreneur Partnerships (BEP) has supported Ferric Contrast with lab space, startup resources, student talent and funding through the Accelerator, the Center of Excellence in Materials Informatics Faculty-Industry Applied Research (CMI FIAR) and the Center of Excellence Bioinformatics Life Sciences (CBLS). This early support helped the company advance its research and secure federal funding.  

In mid-2025 Ferric Contrast was awarded a $305,253 grant from the National Institutes of Health Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program through the National Cancer Institute-a big win following four previous unfunded applications in a notoriously competitive process. The funding will allow the company to advance pre-clinical work, perform additional synthesis testing and move into imaging and toxicity testing in partnership with Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. 

The NIH grant’s principal investigator, Eric Snyder, PhD, is a UB grad who was a postdoctoral student in Morrow’s lab and joined the Ferric Contrast team in 2020.

In anticipation of this funding, Ferric Contrast added a second lab space at Baird to make room for growth. The company plans to double the size of it's workforce to six employees within the next year. The team hopes that more of Morrow’s grad students will consider careers as chemists to fill those positions with Ferric Contrast given their familiarity with the science behind its products.

La Salle says this growth will put the company in a great position for its next major milestone: Ferric Contrast’s first official meeting with the FDA targeted for early 2026, where the company will begin to prove the efficacy and safety of the technology its team has worked so hard to create.