High-tech research firm moving to Bowling Green

Caza Innovations CEO Kent Murphy. (SUBMITTED)

A research and technology firm known for its work in commercial applications that span biotechnology, data systems and advanced materials announced Thursday its relocation to Bowling Green.

The company, Caza Innovations, has since 1990 identified specific problems and solved them, company CEO Kent Murphy said. It goes to universities and federal labs and brings technology, the right people and the needed resources together — among those, the right financing, angel investors, corporate finance, venture capital and private equity, he said.

It’s done 900 Small Business Innovation Research grants and worked with some 60 universities, said Ron Bunch, president and CEO of the Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce. It has done an IPO, sold six companies to Fortune 500 companies and created nearly 700 jobs that have been sustained for decades, Murphy said.

“(We) hope to do the same thing in Bowling Green,” Murphy said. “Ron (Bunch) and WKU have a phenomenal vision for what the future of Bowling Green might look like, and we would like to be a part of that in some ways and support that.”

Formerly based in Arlington, Virginia, Caza Innovations is relocating to the WKU campus on Normal Street.

Caza Innovations has about five employees and is working toward hiring an additional 15 who are Kentucky residents for high-paying, full-time jobs across 15 years. It is investing nearly $270,000 toward initial salaries for principal investigators to write proposals to the government for SBIR and non-SBIR funding, Murphy said; the governor’s office added that the investment is part of a performance-based agreement that can raise up to $100,000 in tax incentives.

“His company actually finds intellectual property and then creates new companies, and he’s going to be doing that in Bowling Green,” Bunch said. “I would call him a first-round draft pick in this sort of business, anywhere in the country.”

The Chamber added in a statement: “Caza’s relocation represents a major win for South Central Kentucky’s tech-based economic development efforts and will immediately support WKU’s research enterprise, commercialization activities, and applied learning opportunities for students.”

The decision to relocate came out of a decadeslong friendship with Bunch that prompted multiple visits to Bowling Green, Murphy said. It selected Bowling Green “for its strategic location, access to regional talent, and proximity to WKU’s applied research assets,” the Chamber added.

Caza Innovations has reached out to faculty members who specialize in areas related to those the company is working on, aiming to get up to speed on WKU’s strategic vision and how it can support that, Murphy said.

The plan, he added, is to start with faculty members and then hire students as interns, part-time, and then full- time positions — followed by master’s and PhD dissertation and thesis topics coming out of the collaborations, Murphy said. He also plans to collaborate with many WKU departments, including chemistry, biology, data analytics and the nursing school.

“This collaboration reflects the kind of future-focused partnership that defines WKU’s path forward,” WKU President Tim Caboni wrote in a statement. “Caza Innovations’ decision to headquarter in Bowling Green — and to engage directly with our faculty and students — reinforces the value of our applied research mission and our region’s growing status as a destination for technology and talent. Together, we’re building the research enterprise and entrepreneurial ecosystem that will power Kentucky’s next economy.”

At WKU, Caza Innovations has already found people working on fiber optic sensors nearly identical to what the company is trying to do for a hydrogen sensor. The area of hydrogen is moving rapidly, but sensors are needed to accurately detect hydrogen leaks because just a little can cause an explosion, Murphy said.

So, the company has already demonstrated a sensor for that — and will be finishing product development efforts in Bowling Green, he said.

Murphy also pointed to other projects and collaborations in the works that they’ll be continuing in Bowling Green.

One is with Graves Gilbert Clinic, which is providing 500 vaginal swab samples to aid Caza Innovations’ research in women’s health.

Caza Innovations has proposals under review for women’s health and built an automated fluorescent microscope that rapidly and automatically scans images, with AI analyzing them to look at the vaginal biome — circulating tumor cells and cancer and endometriosis, he said. The company has proposals in for cancer therapies and has licensed some compounds from universities “that show a lot of promise to increase the number of cures” for the widely popular cancer drug Keytruda.

GGC’s swabs will help the company look at the vaginal biome — which, when out of balance, can lead to preterm birth, babies with low birth weights, and pelvic inflammatory disease, Murphy said.