A pharmaceutical company born out of research at Kansas University is growing up faster than any other technology company in the state — and ranks among the fastest-growing in North America.

Lenexa-based CyDex Inc. is No. 317 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500, a list of public and private companies with the largest percentage increases in annual revenues over five years.

CyDex made the cut by rising from revenues of $630,000 in 1999 to $4.573 million in 2003, driven largely by licensing Captisol — the company’s innovative drug-delivery technology — to major pharmaceutical companies.

“The key to all of this is that we have excellent technology,” said John Siebert, chief executive officer. “This technology did come out of the University of Kansas, the Higuchi Biosciences Center — the invention of Dr. Val Stella and (Dr.) Roger Rajewski. That’s really the basis for what makes this company tick, and what gives us the opportunity to be successful.”

CyDex, spun off from the center in 1993, today has 20 employees at its Lenexa headquarters. The company intends to use revenues from its licensing arrangements, with companies like Pfizer, to focus on creation of its own products, which then could be licensed or brought to market in partnership with major companies.

In August, CyDex received $17 million in venture capital from an expanding roster of investors, including Houston-based Sanders Morris Harris and the venture-capital arms of GlaxoSmithKline and Eastman Chemical Co.

The Fast 500, released this week, includes two other Kansas companies: Leawood-based Euronet Worldwide Inc., at No. 421; and Kansas City, Kan.-based EPIQ Systems Inc., at No. 456.

One company — St. Louis-based Savvis Communications Corp., at No. 227 — hails from Missouri.

“We can crow about that part,” Siebert said, noting that the list is dominated by California firms, “but that isn’t a lot to crow about.”