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​Rising Stars – Global Seed Session

Amypopharma S.r.l.

Amypopharma S.r.l. is an Italian biotech start-up Company, with the mission to develop functionalized nanoliposomes for new therapeutic approaches to treat protein misfolding disorders (i.e. amyloidosis) for many of which no therapies are available. Amypopharma is a spin-off of Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca (UniMiB) and was founded by Professor Massimo Ernesto Masserini and Dr Francesca Re. Research activities are based on the scientific work on nanoliposome technology originated from the team lead by the two founders at UniMiB, initially with a specific focus on nanoparticles for Alzheimer’s disease. In 2018, BiovelocITA has invested in Amypopharma with the objective to accelerate and reposition the development of proprietary nanoparticles (registered under the trademark "Amyposomes") for the treatment of several different amyloidosis  with unmet medical needs. In vitro and in vivo studies completed so far demonstrated that the clinical candidate is effective in preventing amyloid fibrils aggregation and effectivly disaggregates already formed amyloid aggregates accompanied by significant improvement of clinical phenotype. Moreover preclinical studies show favorable pharmacokinetic profile including efficient crossing of blood brain barrier, high affinity for amyloid fibrils, significant antinflammatory effects and no toxicity. Amypopharma assets include 2 granted patents with composition of matters and one patent application for the use of the compounds in prevention and treatment of amyloidosis. Amypopharma is seeking investment to progress to clinical stage.

https://www.amypopharma.com/

Beo Therapeutics AG

Beo Therapeutics AG is a biotech company that develops new microbiome treatments for gout and serious (cardio) metabolic diseases such as hypertension, chronic kidney disease and NASH. The products will be positioned as non-prescription treatments, medical foods, that compliments strict diet and drugs. Medical foods development has the potential to disrupt the conventional drug development paradigm and enable a highly abbreviated path to commercialisation. Beo Therapeutics anticipate an exit in 4 years.

http://www.beotherapeutics.com/

​Bluehaven Therapeutics AG

Bluehaven Therapeutics AG is developing novel drugs with breakthrough potential for superior clinical efficacy in areas of high unmet medical need in oncology, addressing aggressive or resistant forms of cancer. These drugs target highly differentiated and disease relevant molecular targets with strong biological validation by exacerbating genomic instability through impacting key downstream processes including DNA damage repair, chromatin modifications or other molecular mechanisms. Bluehaven is a fully independent spin-out from Proteros Biostructures GmbH, leveraging 20+ years of successful drug discovery work in unlocking technically challenging drug targets. Bluehaven is led by a strong and experienced scientific and entrepreneurial team with a track record across pharma and biotech in EU and US in the areas of R&D, BD, company building, VC and fund raising. The company is raising EUR 4–6m in a seed round to advance its first 2–3 projects into pre-clinical stage.

​FORESEE Biosystems

The FORESEE project aims at satisfying the needs of the pharmaceutical market through the commercialization of a revolutionary electro-optical platform for the precise and automated pharmacological study of the effects of drugs on human heart cell cultures in vitro. We will introduce on the market a new methodology that allows simultaneous access to action potentials of thousands of cardiomyocytes grown in advanced culture models, thus performing rapid and cost-effective electrophysiological measurements with unprecedented quality and level of parallelization. In particular, we will shape a new market for the study of chronic cardiotoxicity, complex co-cultures that simulate human tissue and induced disease models for precision medicine applications. The commercialization of FORESEE products will reduce the time, costs and resources needed for the development of new drugs and precision medicine. For this reason, the company will find a fertile and particularly receptive market represented by Contract Research Organizations (CROs) and pharmaceutical companies, which have a dramatic need to improve drug development processes.

​GAOMA Therapeutics S.A.S.

​GAOMA Therapeutics is a biotech company developing a unique portfolio of novel patented lipid active ingredients and vectors. With its proprietary drug candidates, GAOMA is committed to address unmet medical needs in neurological and inflammatory disorders. GAOMA has a particular expertise in the field of Epilepsies and intends to explore the efficacy of its molecules in other indications such as Alzheimer Disease or Inflammatory Bowel Disease. 

HexagonFab Ltd.

HexagonFabs develops nanomaterial-based biosensors for life science analysis that require high-sensitive, rapid and real-time results (e.g. protein-protein and protein-small molecule interaction analysis). With our affordable tool biotech companies can boost their on-site analysis capability to a level that is usually reserved for global pharmaceutical companies. Our prototype was finished in Nov 2019 and we are currently conducting pilot projects with selected customers.

http://www.hexagonfab.com

​iLoF - Intelligent Lab on Fiber

iLoF is enabling a new era of personalized, precision medicine, by providing screening and stratification tools in an affordable, fast,portable way. To start, we are focusing our technology on the epidemic of our century: Alzheimer's disease. 

Currently headquartered in the Oxford, UK, with a engineering center in Porto, Portugal and accelerated at the Oxford Foundry, we are a team of PhDs, scientists and inventors with a vision of revolutionizing personalized medicine and making precision diagnostic tools be the norm.

http://www.ilof.tech/

​InCephalo Therapeutics 

Antibodies and other biologics have revolutionized therapy for many diseases, yet up to now this has not been possible for disorders of the Central Nervous System (CNS). The main hurdle in the clinics is to reach and sustain high local concentration within the CNS, at the same time avoiding systemic side effects. We at InCephalo Therapeutics, a spin-off from the University of Zurich, have developed a novel technology to optimize antibodies and antibody-fragment biologics for improved efficacy and safety upon local CNS administration. Our lead compound, a potent immunomodulatory drug designed for therapy of brain cancer, has improved CNS retention and better safety profile compared to previous generations of biologics. The planned first-in-human clinical trial will be a proof-of-concept for the technology and a booster for the development of other drugs in our pipeline.

InCephalo brings truly enabling and potentially transformative technology to the therapy of CNS disorders.

​Indicate Solutions

Our vision is to develop a rapid, economic and easy to use blood test to detect biomarkers of cancer and other disease at POC. Enabling clinicians to make fast treatment decisions and improving the lives of patients. The company is focused in the short term to develop a Companion Diagnostic (CDx) application for TKIs (targeted therapies for non-small cell lung cancer detection (NSCLC)), targeting specifically L858R and T790M EGFR mutations (proof of concept of the technology platform) and in mid-term to develop other potential applications in cancer and infectious diseases. The Indicate device is the ClearBlue for diagnosis.

http://indicate.solutions/

​Intrepida

Intrepida has created a patient-facing app that is the match.com for clinical trials. The tool leverages NLP to allow patients to directly access information about trials in an easily searchable, personally tailored way and thus helps trial sponsors recruit faster, more diverse and more suitable patients. Ancora also provides patients with educational resources about trials and enriched information about potential matches. Ultimately the tool democratizes clinical trial access for patients while helping drug developers increase efficiency and maximize time on patent. 

https://www.intrepid-analytics.com/

Lyme Diagnostics Ltd.

Lyme Diagnostics Ltd. is a biotech-medtech company providing technologies to improve the diagnostic methods in tick-borne Lyme disease. Our project was funded by the H2020 SME Instrument. We have conducted a cross-European clinical study and our first automated In-vitro Diagnostic Device is close to market deployment. Our team consists of Lyme-experts, health business professionals, laboratory experts and successful startup managers. We have come to this conference to raise the attention of investors and potential large technical partners.

https://lymediagnostics.com

​MD Precision Health AG

Multi Dimensional Precision Health (MDPH) is an early-stage Swiss biomedical company focused on creating a world-class clinical intelligence system that uses multi-dimensional data to give healthcare providers the ability to make superior and faster treatment recommendations with measurably more successful outcomes for patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC). We develop and commercialise a highly scalable and interoperable platform to support (1) hospital networks and their tumor boards in clinical decision making and (2) life sciences innovators in conducting clinical trials or identifying novel escape mechanisms and related therapeutic targets.

http://www.md-precisionhealth.com/

​Nanoglue

Nanoglue is a Swiss startup developing a nanoparticle-based solution to improve the acceptance of skin grafts. We will offer bioactive nanoparticles suspended in an easily applicable matrix. The application process only adds one step to the current protocol. The active ingredients are metal oxide nanoparticles that have anti-inflammatory and neo-angiogenic properties. As such, they stimulate the regeneration of blood vessels connecting to the transplanted tissue and reduce inflammation. Furthermore, their antimicrobial properties protect patients from infections – much-needed properties, especially in the face of antibiotic resistances. 

http://www.nanoglue.ch/

​Ochre Bio Ltd.

​Ochre Bio is developing therapies that improve liver metabolism outside of the body. Having a fatty liver is now the main reason for needing a transplant. Fatty donor livers also have poorer outcomes and so are often discarded, meaning that fatty liver is also a major reason for the shortage of donor livers and for transplant complications. Ochre Bio is developing gene therapies that ‘recondition’ fatty donor livers maintained outside of the body; this will expand the pool of available organs while improving patient outcomes, and will allow us to rapidly develop therapies for non-transplant patients living with fatty liver as well. 

https://www.ochre-bio.com/

​Octarine Bio

Octarine’s mission is harnessing synthetic biology to develop rare and functionally superior cannabinoids and psilocybin derivatives targeting the pharmaceutical industry to improve the health and well-being of people worldwide. Octarine has developed in-cell enzymatic platforms expanding the chemical diversity of cannabinoids and psychedelic tryptamine derivatives facilitating the production of superior molecules with improved pharmacokinetic properties.​

http://octarinebio.com/

​PharmaBiome AG

PharmaBiome pioneers next-generation microbiome therapies. Our bacterial mixes target functional disbalances of the microbiome – an underlying cause of numerous incurable diseases. Our portfolio of previously uncultured intestinal bacteria and our proprietary technology allow greater control over production, storage and therapeutic efficacy. The scalability and versatility of our process allows the fast development of a diversified compound portfolio. Our first microbiome therapeutics target IBD and oncology.​

https://www.pharmabiome.com/

​Proxi Biotech

Proxi Biotech develops Next Generation vaccines for multi-resistant bacteria. Proxi Biotech has developed the BACTOVAC platform technology that overcomes main barriers in traditional vaccine developing technology which has prevented entrance of highly needed vaccines that target bacterial infections. Our focus is hard-to-treat pathogens with high serotype variation. Proxi Biotech is backed by the Novo Nordisk Foundation initiative - BioInnovation Institute and the Innovation Fund Denmark. 

https://www.proxibiotech.com/

Saverna Therapeutics AG

Saverna Therapeutics is a drug discovery company founded in 2017 by four senior scientists to develop RNA-targeting small molecule drugs to combat diseases with an unmet clinical need. The team developed an innovative drug discovery platform that combines fragment-based screening, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and machine learning allowing time- and cost-efficient discovery of promising small molecule drugs selectively targeting specific microRNAs (miRNAs). Saverna’s first development pipeline asset is a small molecule inhibitor of pre-miR-155, a major RNA-based contributor to the development of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).

http://www.saverna.com/

Serengen GmbH

Serengen is a privately owned biotechnology company based in Dortmund, Germany. Its mission is to apply its disruptive DNA-encoded library technology (DELT) to the discovery of small molecule leads against high-value therapeutic targets. Serengen provides early drug discovery services and uses its unique technology platform (ceDEC) to build a pipeline of highly attractive lead candidates.

http://www.serengen.com/

SYNOESIS THERAPEUTICS LTD.

SyNoesis Therapeutics is a start-up biotech with the vision to cure Parkinson's disease (PD) and other major brain diseases. We aim to capitalize on the potential of a anovel small molecule we patented for PD and we are developing a portfolio of clinical candidates accordingly to be successful in clinical trials.

http://www.synoesistherapeutics.com/

Twelve Bio

TwelveBio is a startup from the University of Copenhagen committed to bringing CRISPR-Cas12a technology forward for the identification and correction of genetic disorders.

https://twelve.bio/