ABOUT 14th_ELSF
> REGISTRATION
> AGENDA​
> ATTENDEES​
> INVESTORS​
​> PRESENTERS
> SPONSORS​
> SUPPORTERS​
> NETWORKING

> ABOUT LAST YEAR​

spotlight showcases

bergenbio asa

BerGenBio is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing transformative drugs targeting AXL as a potential cornerstone of therapy for aggressive diseases, including immune-evasive, therapy resistant cancers. The company's proprietary lead candidate, bemcentinib, is a potentially first-in-class selective AXL inhibitor in a broad phase II oncology clinical development programme focused on combination and single agent therapy in lung cancer, leukaemia and COVID19. A first-in-class functional blocking anti-AXL antibody, tilvestamab, is undergoing phase I clinical testing. In parallel, BerGenBio is developing companion diagnostic tests to identify patient populations most likely to benefit from bemcentinib: this is expected to facilitate more efficient registration trials supporting a precision medicine-based commercialisation strategy.

BerGenBio is based in Bergen, Norway with a subsidiary in Oxford, UK. The company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (ticker: BGBIO). For more information, visit www.bergenbio.com

https://www.bergenbio.com

Oasmia Pharmaceutical AB

Oasmia is a specialty pharma company dedicated to improving the lives of patients by enhancing the intravenous delivery of established and novel drugs in significant diseases, including cancer. Product development is based on the Company’s proprietary drug delivery technology platform XR-17™ which can be applied to medicines used in many therapeutic areas, to develop water soluble formulations of drugs that currently require chemical solubilizers for dissolution. The first product approved using this technology is Apealea® (paclitaxel micellar). Apealea has received market authorization in the European Union and several other territories for the treatment of first relapse in platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer, in combination with carboplatin. The Company is making Apealea accessible to patients through its partnership with Elevar Therapeutics, together with its existing commercial operations in the Nordic region. Oasmia’s shares are traded on the Nasdaq Stockholm stock exchange (ticker: OASM).

www.oasmia.com

PharmaVentures Ltd.

PharmaVentures is a premier transaction advisory firm and a leading international company in partnering, M&A deals and strategic alliances. For the past 28 years, PharmaVentures has acted as advisor on over 900 deal related projects covering licensing, mergers, acquisitions, divestments, and joint venture activities for companies worldwide.
 
PharmaVentures’ deep bank of specialist experience, deal analytics and network of contacts from innovators to large pharma makes us uniquely placed to support business in all aspects of deal making and strategic planning. PharmaVentures is well known for its deep insight into deal structures and its success for generating partnering interest. 

PharmaVentures’ services include:
 

• M&A (divestments, mergers, acquisitions, and strategic transactions)
• Licensing (in and out licensing)
• Fundraising
• Strategy (commercialisation, deal strategy, due diligence, market entry)
• Valuation and Positioning (licensing, M&A, fundraising, and expert testimonies)

 
PharmaVentures is based in Oxford, UK, and employs over 20 professionals and has associates in Asia-Pacific.
 
PharmaVentures Capital Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of PharmaVentures Ltd. All regulated activities are delivered through PharmaVentures Capital Ltd, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (741356).
 
https://www.pharmaventures.com/

silence therapeutics plc.

 Silence Therapeutics is developing a new generation of medicines by harnessing the body’s natural mechanism of RNA interference, or RNAi, to inhibit the expression of specific target genes thought to play a role in the pathology of diseases with significant unmet medical need.

Our proprietary technology can be used to engineer short interfering ribonucleic acids (siRNAs) that bind specifically to and silence, through the RNAi pathway, almost any gene in the human genome to which siRNA can be delivered. Using our RNAi-directed platform technologies, we have generated siRNA product candidates both for our internal development pipeline as well as for out-licensed programs with third-party collaborators. We are currently
focused on developing siRNA molecules for the potential treatment of cardiovascular disease, rare diseases such as iron overload disorders, and complement-mediated disorders.

www.silence-therapeutics.com/

stalicla s.a.

STALICLA is a Biotech Company developing a first-in-class precision medicine platform to accelerate drug development for patients with Neurodevelopmental Disorders (NDDs). STALICLA is using computational systems biology tools technology to characterize correlations between NDD phenotypes, gene expression in relevant molecular pathways and treatment response.

https://stalicla.com/

Syneos Health, LLC

Syneos Health™ is an end-to-end, fully integrated biopharmaceutical solutions company that works differently. At Syneos Health, all the disciplines involved in bringing new therapies to market, from clinical to commercial, work together to create customer success. Our unique Biopharmaceutical Acceleration Model (BAM) delivers value across the small to mid-size to large customer continuum. Syneos Health is the only company in the biopharmaceutical services industry purpose-built to create greater success for our customers. At Syneos Health, clinical and commercial live under the same roof and constantly share real world knowledge and insights that lead to getting the job done better, smarter and faster.

https://www.syneoshealth.com/

vaximm

VAXIMM is a privately held, clinical stage, Swiss/German biotech company developing oral T-cell immunotherapies for patients suffering from cancer. VAXIMM’s product platform is based on a live attenuated, safe, orally available bacterial vaccine strain, which is modified to stimulate patients’ cytotoxic T-cells to target specific structures of the tumor and it can be readily adapted to target a wide range of cancer-related antigens. The Company has a pipeline of complementary development candidates targeting different tumor structures.

Lead product candidate, oral VXM01, activates killer cells targeting tumor-specific vasculature and certain immune-suppressive cells, thereby increasing immune cell infiltration in solid tumors. VXM01 is currently in clinical development for several tumor types, including brain cancer.
VAXIMM has an ongoing clinical trial evaluating VXM01 in combination with the human anti-PD-L1 antibody, avelumab, as part of a scientific collaboration with Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.
VAXIMM also has a neoantigen program currently in preclinical development; the Company’s platform allows for fast generation and delivery of personalized T-cell cancer vaccines and may overcome key issues faced by other neoantigen approaches. VAXIMM has a strategic clinical trial collaboration with NEC Corporation for the development of personalized neoantigen cancer vaccines.
The Company also has entered into a collaboration agreement with China Medical System Holdings (CMS), granting CMS full rights in China and other Asian countries (excluding Japan) to VAXIMM’s existing programs.

VAXIMM’s investors include BB Biotech Ventures, BCM Europe, BioMed Partners, CMS, M Ventures, NEC and Sunstone Capital.
With VAXIMM’s highly adaptable platform, a COVID-19 vaccine development project has recently been initiated.

VAXIMM AG is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland.  Its wholly owned subsidiary, VAXIMM GmbH, located in Mannheim, Germany, is responsible for the Company’s development activities.

http://www.vaximm.com

20 minute showcases

Ability Pharmaceuticals, SL

AbilityPharma is a biopharmaceutical company developing new first-in-class candidates to treat cancer. We are focused on autophagy as a new therapeutic strategy to induce cancer cell death. Based on this novel mechanism of action, we are generating a portfolio of new drugs targeting oncological unmet needs.

www.abilitypharma.com/

alzprotect

Alzprotect is a biopharmaceutical company developing drug candidates with a focus on neurodegenerative diseases , esp. Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and tauopathies such as Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP). AlzProtect intervenes in the drug candidates development from their discovery to clinical trials.

www.alzprotect.com/

Anima Biotech, Inc.

Anima Biotech is advancing Translation Control Therapeutics, the first and only platform for the discovery of small molecule drugs that control mRNA translation as a new strategy against hard and undruggable targets in many diseases.

Anima’s proprietary technology enables visualization and monitoring of target protein translation via pulses of light emitted by ribosomes. The fully automated high-throughput screening system discovers small molecules that modulate the light, as they decrease or increase the target protein’s production. The platform integrates proprietary technologies in biology, bioinformatics, image analysis, big data analysis and artificial intelligence algorithms in a cloud computing software architecture.

Anima is developing an internal pipeline across multiple therapeutic areas with high unmet need and hard targets. Current programs are in Fibrosis (inhibiting the synthesis of Collagen type I), Viral infections (Respiratory Syncytial Virus – interfering with viral protein synthesis), Oncology (C-Myc translation inhibitors), Huntington's disease (monitoring mutant Huntingtin translation pausing) and Repeat Associated Diseases (translation malfunctions).

Anima’s Translation Control Therapeutics platform is strategically designed for partnering with Pharma. The power of Anima’s approach was solidified with a $1B+ collaboration with Lilly for the discovery and development of translation inhibitors of several targets. Anima’s technology has been further validated by 5 granted patents, 14 peer reviewed publications and 17 scientific collaborations.​​

www.animabiotech.com/

eTheRNA immunotherapies NV

eTheRNA immunotherapies is developing first in class mRNA immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer and infectious diseases. We employ messenger RNA to unleash and boost a patient’s immune response against a tumor or infectious agent. Research shows that this approach results in long lasting clinical remission in cancer patients and protective immunity against infections.

eTheRNA was established in January 2013 as a spin-off company from the ‘Vrije Universiteit Brussel’ (VUB), following the development of its TriMix mRNA technology.

www.etherna.be/

Immunicum AB

Immunicum is a clinical-stage biotech in immuno-oncology developing allogeneic, off-the-shelf, cell-based therapies for solid tumors. Its lead product ilixadencel is in Phase II in kidney cancer. The company is listed at Nasdaq Stockholm.

immunicum.se/

Microbiotica Ltd.

Initially built out of 10 years investment in the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Microbiotica has unrivalled capabilities in microbiome analysis linked to patient phenotype. It is the global leader in gut bacterial culturing, has the world’s leading microbiome Culture Collection, proprietary Reference Genome Database and microbiome AI. The company also has advanced capabilities in translational biology and preclinical development. Microbiotica is exploiting its platform in developing best in class Live Bacterial Therapeutic and Biomarker programs in IBD, Immuno-oncology and C. difficile. It has major collaborations with Genentech/Roche in IBD, University of Adelaide in Ulcerative Colitis, and Cancer Research UK and Cambridge University Hospitals in Immuno-oncology.

www.microbiotica.com/

MISSION Therapeutics Ltd

Mission Therapeutics has built a proprietary world-leading DUB platform that combines novel disease biology, bespoke screening tools and unique chemistry, thereby generating a rich pipeline of highly potent and specific small-molecule drug candidates that have substantial clinical and commercial potential. The Company is now progressing several programs towards and into clinical development.

missiontherapeutics.com/

NOXXON Pharma NV

NOXXON’s oncology-focused pipeline acts by neutralizing chemokines in the tumor micro-environment (TME). NOXXON’s approach works in combination with other forms of treatment to weaken tumor defenses against the immune system and enable greater therapeutic impact.

www.noxxon.com/

Oryzon Genomics S.A.

ORYZON is a public clinical stage biopharmaceutical company and the European leader in the development of epigenetics-based therapeutics, with a strong focus on personalized medicine approaches to CNS disorders and oncology.

Our business model is to develop our proprietary drug candidates through clinical Phase II, at which point we decide on a case-by-case basis to either keep the development in-house or to partner or out-license the compound for late stage development and commercialization.

ORYZON has been listed on the Spanish Stock Exchange since December 2015 (ORY, ISIN Code: ES0167733015). Since then, the company has attracted specialized investors from US, Israel and Europe in several PIPEs led by different US investment banks.

www.oryzon.com/es

Oxurion NV

Oxurion (Euronext Brussels: OXUR) is a biopharmaceutical company developing next generation standard of care ophthalmic therapies, which are designed to better preserve vision in patients with diabetic macular edema (DME), the leading cause of vision loss in
diabetic patients worldwide.

Oxurion is aiming to build the leading global franchise in the treatment of DME, based on the successful development of its two novel therapeutics:
- THR-149
- THR-687

Oxurion is headquartered in Leuven, Belgium, and is listed on the Euronext Brussels exchange under the symbol OXUR

www.oxurion.com/

Ultimovacs

Ultimovacs (Euronext Oslo Stock Exchange: ULTI.OL) is a Norwegian biotech Company that is pursuing several Phase II clinical development trials in a number of cancer indications. The company is advancing its proprietary peptide-based universal cancer vaccine program, UV1. UV1 induces a specific T cell response against the universal cancer antigen telomerase (hTERT) and is made up of long, synthetic peptides shown to induce CD4+ T cells displaying a Th1 cytokine profile. With over 85% of tumors expressing hTERT at a high level, UV1 has the potential to treat a broad range of cancer indications.

To date, Ultimovacs has conducted multiple Phase I studies in different cancer indications with different inhibitor combinations, confirming the safety and tolerability of its proprietary vaccine. The company announced the initiation of four Phase II triple combination studies.

ultimovacs.com

10 minute showcases

Accure Therapeutics SL

A new medicine R&D engine (R&D pharma company) operated by an experienced team dedicated to the discovery and development of new medicines to treat patient suffering from severe diseases of the central nervous system.

Accure Therapeutics focuses on neurons that suffer a dysfunction, and on the glial environment that supports them, in an attempt to impede their degeneration and death. We work to find new medicines that correct the pathological changes that are responsible for the disease, and that produce beneficial outcomes (i.e. Disease Modifying Therapies). We specialize in developing drugs that promote neuroprotection and neurorepair by integrating the latest advances in neurobiology with state-of-the-art clinical research.

We have currently built up a drug candidate portfolio that focuses on four areas: Optic Neuritis, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s Disease and Epilepsy.

accure.health/

Anocca AB

A biotechnology company developing next-generation immunotherapies via individualisation of therapeutic products to precisely leverage the immune system of each patient.

Due to both the immense complexity of immunity and the significant differences in the composition of the immune system between individuals, there is a need to individualise targeted immunotherapeutics. Anocca’s unique technology platform captures key information from the immune system of each individual to deliver a range of immunotherapies specifically tailored to target the disease attributes of each patient, and to work safely within the constraints of each patient’s immune system.

Anocca’s first clinical programs aim to deliver cellular therapies equipped either with targeting receptors from our receptor libraries that are tailored for defined groups of individuals, or equipped with targeting receptors that are created for each patient in a fully individualised manner.

​https://www.anocca.com/

Brenus Pharma

Brenus Pharma is a French biotech company targeting high unmet medical needs in oncology with the objective to become leader in allogenic cell-based immunotherapy.

Its management team skilled in cell-ATMP manufacturing and oncology business and supported by academics developed and patented both technology STC and first therapeutic candidate STC-1010.

Technology of Stimulated Tumor Cells is based on the capability of combined master-cell banks to overexpress resistance factors under conditions mimicking treatment and chemical tagging of TAA/TSA to boost immunogenicity. STC is scalable and secured on time and costs of production.
Original mode of action is by-pass of chemoresistance, by-pass of immunotolerance and impact on tumor micro-environment through induction of immune response.
http://www.brenus-pharma.com/

Destiny Pharma plc

Destiny Pharma PLC is a UK London AIM listed biotech company focusing on infection prevention. It has two, novel clinical stage programs and an earlier pipeline including biotherapeutic/microbiome assets and its own XF platform.

The lead asset is a naturally occurring bacterial spore NTCD-M3 that has completed Phase 2 studies for the prevention of C. diffcile infection recurrence. Phase 3 to start in 2022. The second clinical asset is XF-73, a nasal gel administered prior to surgery to decolonise staphylococcal aureus and reduce the risk of post-surgical infections such as MRSA. Phase 2 data due by end of Q1 2021.

Earlier programs include a COVID-19 prevention pre-clinical program called SPOR-COV in collaboration with SporeGen Ltd. There are other projects being carried out using drug candidates from the XF platform. XF drugs act via an ultra-rapid action which kill bacteria (including many antibiotic and multi-drug resistant (MDR) strains and in bioflms thereby addressing AMR) leaving the bacteria unable to mount a resistance response.

Destiny listed in London in September 2017.

www.destinypharma.com/

PDC*line Pharma SA

Founded in April 2014 as a spin-off of the French Blood Bank (Etablissement Français du Sang, EFS), PDC*line Pharma is a Belgian-French biotech company that is developing a novel class of off-the-shelf cancer immunotherapies based on a proprietary Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cell line (PDC*line) pre-loaded with peptides that are derived from target tumor antigens. Based on a robust preclinical package and a first-in-human phase Ib feasibility study in melanoma, PDC*line Pharma is focusing on lung cancer with a new candidate in phase I/II clinical trial (PDC*lung) and neoantigens (PDC*Neo). PDC*line Pharma comprises a team of 24 highly skilled professionals based in Liège (Belgium) and Grenoble (France) and has raised nearly €31.5M in equity and non-dilutive funding.

http://pdc-line-pharma.com/​

ProteKt Therapeutics Ltd.

ProteKt Therapeutics is a drug development company aiming to develop potent and selective inhibitors of the kinase PKR for the treatment of neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory diseases. The company has raised a $4M pre-A round and graduated from the FutuRx accelerator in 2019.

PKR is involved in neuroinflammation, apoptosis, TAU phosphorylation and Aβ-induced toxicity, which are all prominent features of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and therefore, is a good target for drug development for AD. Inhibition of PKR reduces neuronal cell-death and inflammation, suggesting it may have a disease modifying effect in neurodegenerative disease, including Alzheimer’s disease. PKR inhibition also improves cognition by enhancing memory consolidation process via a unique mechanism involving protein translation initiation disinhibition. Furthermore, the levels of activated PKR are highly increased in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients suffering from AD or Mild Cognitive Impairment and can correlate with the cognitive decline in AD patients and with hyperphosphorylation of TAU. These finding suggest that activated PKR may be developed also as a companion diagnostic tool to target the right patient sub-population and monitor pharmacodynamic during clinical development. This tool will significantly facilitate clinical development and reduce clinical development risk.

ProteKt’s multimodal approach may overcome many of challenges that hindered the ability of other drug candidates, many of which targeting Aβ, to successfully change the course of AD. This approach is supported by a strong and growing body of preclinical and human evidences.
ProteKt used state of the art approaches to identify novel, potent and selective proprietary small molecules hits. We demonstrated in vitro and in vivo PoC with representative hits and recently completed hit to lead process and aim to complete in vivo PoC with the lead soon. ProteKt is seeking its a-round financing which will carry it all the way to first in man studies.

www.protektx.com

RedHill Biopharma Ltd.

RedHill Biopharma Ltd. (Nasdaq: RDHL) is a specialty biopharmaceutical company primarily focused on gastrointestinal diseases.

RedHill promotes the gastrointestinal drugs, Movantik® for opioid-induced constipation in adults, Talicia® for the treatment of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection in adults and Aemcolo® for the treatment of travelers’ diarrhea in adults.

RedHill’s key clinical late-stage development programs include:

(i) RHB-204, with a planned pivotal Phase 3 study for pulmonary nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) infections
(ii) opaganib (Yeliva®), a first-in-class SK2 selective inhibitor targeting multiple indications with a Phase 2/3 program for COVID-19 and ongoing Phase 2 studies for prostate cancer and cholangiocarcinoma
(iii) RHB-104, with positive results from a first Phase 3 study for Crohn's disease
(iv) RHB-102 (Bekinda®), with positive results from a Phase 3 study for acute gastroenteritis and gastritis and positive results from a Phase 2 study for IBS-D
(v) RHB-106, an encapsulated bowel preparation
(vi) RHB-107, a Phase 2-stage first-in-class, serine protease inhibitor, targeting cancer and inflammatory gastrointestinal diseases and is also being evaluated for COVID-19.

https://www.redhillbio.com/

shaperon, inc.

Novel inflammasome inhibitors (small molecules)

Shaperon is a clinical-stage biotech company with world's first inflammasome inhibitors that regulate both IL-1b and TNF-a. Its novel MoA of inflammasome inhibition through GPCR-P2X7 modulation provides a solution to inherent shortcomings of current inflammasome inhibitors.
• suppresses not only IL-1b but TNF-a, IL-6, and other major pro-inflammatory cytokines
• overcomes inherent shortcomings of conventional P2X7 antagonists and NLRP3 inhibitors such as off-target effects, polymorphism, and redundant pro-inflammatory pathways etc.
• induces immune regulatory circuit by increasing the number of Treg and MDSCs
• most advanced development pipelines among peers
- phase 2 in atopic dermatitis (topical) ongoing
- phase 2 in Covid 19 pneumonia (IV) ongoing
- phase 1 in sepsis completed
- pre-clincial stage in Alzheimer's disease, ulcerative colitis, NASH (oral)

Nanobody-based neutralizing antibody

Shaperon’s alpaca-derived single domain antibody(nanoMAb®) is one-tenth the size of conventional antibody. Its small size allows it to tumble into pockets and narrow openings on the coronavirus’ spike protein, sticking onto parts of the spike a normal-sized antibody can hardly fit onto. Shaperon's nanobodies have demonstrated high neutralizing potency against COVID-19 spike proteins. The stability, solubility, and the ease of formulation into inhalable drug of nanoMAb® offer advantages over conventional antibody therapeutics.

shaperon.com

Tollys

TOLLYS is a preclinical stage biopharmaceutical company stemming from 20 years of research in innate immunity and TLR3 receptor biology and modulation. The co-founders of Tollys are senior scientists from the Cancer Research Center of Lyon and pharmaceutical industry executives.

https://tollys.fr/

Virica Biotech

Virica Biotech Inc. is a Canadian company, based in Ottawa, that specializes in the development of proprietary viral sensitizer compounds (VSe) as well as a proprietary oncolytic viral therapy.

The VSe platform to date consists of over 100 small molecules that enhance the manufacturing and efficacy of viruses for downstream applications such as gene therapy, oncolytic viral therapy, vaccines, and cell-therapy. The company currently commercializes an off-the-shelf formulation for lentiviral platforms which has shown to increase yields by 7x. Several other similar products are in development for other viral vector platforms.

Additionally, Virica is developing a proprietary oncolytic viral therapy platform for solid tumor injections based on a VSV + relevant transgene platform in combination with Virica's VSe technology.

https://www.viricabiotech.com/