AFTER THE 14th_ELSF
> RECORDINGS​
> ATTENDEES​
> INVESTORS​
> PRESENTERS​
> SPONSORS​
> SUPPORTERS​

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, fibrosis and viral infection. 

BerGenBio's lead candidate, bemcentinib, is a once-a-day, oral, highly selective and potent inhibitor of AXL kinase, which has demonstrated a key role in cancer treatment by preventing immune evasion, drug resistance and metastasis in a variety of cancer trials.

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 an 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 among innovators and large pharma makes it 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 Europe and 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/

stalicla sa

STALICLA is a Swiss clinical stage biotech company deploying and applying a first in class machine learning platform to bring precision medicine to patients with Neurodevelopmental Disorders (NDDs), with a first application in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
​
STALICLA has assembled a world-class team of experienced drug developers, clinicians and computational systems biologists.

DEPI, the company's first in class NDDs precision medicine platform has reached proof of principle for its capacity to characterize biologically similar subgroups of patients within highly variable populations of patients with neurodevelopmental disorders, and to further identify tailored treatments.
To further advance its drug discovery platform and pipeline, STALICLA has established strong networks within top tier research and clinical centers in the United States and Europe.
STALICLA’s platform has already proven successful in accelerating and lowering risk for its first precision medicine pipeline, STP1, tailored to a subgroup of patients with ASD, called ASD-Phen1.
STALICLA targets to bring two assets into Phase 2 by Q1-2022

STALICLA’s STP1 lead pipeline is currently in clinical trials in the US.
STALICLA is also advancing two additional in house programs and collaborative alliances with strategic third party pipelines.

https://stalicla.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.

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.

http://www.vaximm.com

​XORTX Therapeutics Inc.

XORTX Therapeutics Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company with three clinically advanced products in development – XRx-008 for Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease (ADPKD), XRx-101 for Coronavirus / COVID-19 infection and XRx-221, under a letter of intent to establish a co-development program with Teijin Pharma Limited, for Type 2 Diabetic Nephropathy (T2DN). The Company has strong intellectual property rights and established proof of concept through independent clinical studies. XORTX is working to advance its clinical development stage products that target xanthine oxidase to inhibit production of uric acid. At XORTX Therapeutics, we are dedicated to developing medications to improve the quality of life and future of patients.

www.xortx.com

20 minute showcases

Ability Pharmaceuticals, SL

AbilityPharma is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company committed to develop its first-in-class drug, ABTL0812, an oral targeted anticancer compound causing cell death by autophagy. 

In 2020 we have finished the phase 2a first-line clinical trial in endometrial and lung cancer patients with very positive results, which show that ABTL0812 combined with chemotherapy is much superior to chemotherapy alone. 
Now in 1Q 2021, with the objective of obtaining an early approval of ABTL0812, we are starting the recruitment in a phase 2b/3, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial in 150 patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer as first-line therapy in combination with FOLFIRINOX in Europe, USA and Israel. 

To fund this trial, we have secured 13 M EUR in 2020, both in capital (9 M EUR) and grants (4 M EUR). As part of this funding, we have obtained a 5.2 M EUR grant from the EIC Accelerator Program of the European Commission H2020 (2.4 grant, 2.8 Equity investment) and a 1.9 M USD NIH R01 grant in the FDA Orphan Disease Program. Additional funds are being raised.

ABTL0812 causes irreversible cytotoxic autophagy selectively in cancer cells through the induction of ER Stress and AKT blockade. Besides being efficacious as single agent, ABTL0812 has synergistic effect with chemotherapy and has synergistic effect with IO therapies (anti-PD1) and acts on the tumor microenvironment turning cold tumors into hot (immunogenic) tumors.

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 pioneering Translation Control Therapeutics, a novel approach for the discovery of small molecules that selectively control mRNA translation as a new strategy against undruggable proteins. With our proprietary technology that emits light pulses from ribosomes, we identify drug candidates that selectively decrease or increase the translation of proteins and elucidate their mechanism of action in a new target space. Our pipeline includes programs in Fibrosis (tissue selective Collagen I translation inhibitors), Oncology (c-Myc translation inhibitors and K-Ras translation inhibitors), RSV (viral translation inhibitors), Huntington's disease (selective inhibition of the mutant mHTT) and our $1B partnership with Lilly around several Neuroscience targets. Our science was further validated with seven patents, 15 peer reviewed publications and 17 scientific collaborations.

www.animabiotech.com/

Cyxone AB

Cyxone develops first-in class-disease modifying therapies for diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis as well as treatments for virally induced acute respiratory disorders in convenient administration forms. 

Cyxone is a publicly traded Swedish biotech company with a subsidiary in Switzerland. We are in an active growth phase and represent an exciting investment opportunity for investors with long term interest.

​cyxone.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.

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/

Genprex, Inc.

Genprex, Inc. is a clinical-stage gene therapy company focused on developing life-changing therapies for patients with cancer and diabetes. Genprex’s technologies are designed to administer disease-fighting genes to provide new therapies for large patient populations with cancer and diabetes who currently have limited treatment options. Genprex works with world-class institutions and collaborators to develop drug candidates to further its pipeline of gene therapies in order to provide novel treatment approaches. The Company’s lead product candidate, REQORSA™ (quaratusugene ozeplasmid), is being evaluated as a treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). REQORSA has a multimodal mechanism of action that has been shown to interrupt cell signaling pathways that cause replication and proliferation of cancer cells; re-establish pathways for apoptosis, or programmed cell death, in cancer cells; and modulate the immune response against cancer cells. REQORSA has also been shown to block mechanisms that create drug resistance. In January 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted Fast Track Designation for REQORSA for NSCLC in combination therapy with osimertinib (AstraZeneca’s Tagrisso®) for patients with EFGR mutations whose tumors progressed after treatment with osimertinib alone.

​www.genprex.com/

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 and based in Cambridge UK, Microbiotica identifies gut bacteria linked to patient phenotype with unprecedented precision in order to develop validated live bacterial therapeutics and biomarkers based on clinical datasets. The company is in development with best-in-class live bacterial therapeutics for immuno-oncology and ulcerative colitis, and has partnerships with Genentech, Cancer Research UK, University of Cambridge and University of Adelaide.

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 ASA

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

​​AC BIOSCIENCE SA

AC BioScience is a Swiss biotech company pioneering next generation translational drug developments in immuno-oncology, tumour vascular normalisation and infectious diseases. Three of its lead molecules have blockbuster potential, two of which enter clinical trials in 2021/22. 

AC BioScience’s lead compounds enhance efficacy in combination treatments across a broad spectrum of cancers and do not compete against existing drugs: The company’s immuno-oncology molecule ACB1801 modulates the malignant phenotype in order to improve MHC-1 mediated antigens presentation, and thereby potentiates the efficacy of anti PD-1 therapy. Additionally, the second lead compound ACB2003.4 acts as a tumour vascular normaliser improving delivery and efficacy of cytotoxic therapies. Phase 2 clinical trials will commence in late 2021 for patients suffering from pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

The company’s co-founders and the core team combine scientific excellence with seasoned management experience in execution having developed to date a strong pipeline in science (13 patents), with a strategy to deliver large market/revenue potential for each. Our business model is to develop proprietary drugs up to PoC stage.

The company’s next Series A Round will finance clinical trials and up-scale the development of its product pipeline.

​www.ac-bioscience.com

Accure Therapeutics S.L.

Accure Therapeutics is a R&D pharma company dedicated to developing innovative medicines to treat patients suffering from Central nervous system (CNS) diseases, a major medical challenge. 
​
Our science development strategies are driven by the recent advances in basic neurobiology, neurodegeneration, and neuroinflammation, and on our understanding of the pathogenesis of brain diseases whether at the genetic, molecular, cellular and system level. This scientific knowledge helps us to select relevant targets, and to search for drugs that act through them to combat the neurological disease.

accure.health/

algenex s.l.

Algenex is a Madrid-based VC-backed biotech company with proprietary and patent protected technologies to boost the production of recombinant proteins using Baculovirus vector expression systems (BVES) in insect cells. Our vision is to transform protein production to enable universal access to biotechnology products. We aim to do this by harnessing nature for simple, scalable and cost efficient manufacturing tools: Chrysalises of the Trichoplusia ni (T.ni), the natural host of the baculovirus vector commonly used by the industry, are used in our CrisBio platform as single use natural biocapsules, replacing conventional bioreactors. The result is the ability to produce complex biologicals in a simpler, faster and cheaper way. 

We are capitalizing on our experience in animal health (first approval of a CrisBio® - based vaccine dossier (expected in summer 2021) to expand into human health, where we have 2 programs in preclinical development: Pandemic influenza and Sars-CoV-2. 
​
​www.algenex.com

Alio Medical

Alio is a best in class wearable platform bringing together multiple metrics to drive insights across cardiovascular and pulmonary medicine through a single platform. Utilizing state-of-the-art advanced optics, Alio is able to non-invasively, deliver real-time clinical grade
metrics such as Hemoglobin, Hematocrit, Temperature, Auscultation, Pulse Rate, Oxygen
Saturation, Blood Pressure, Volumetric Blood Flow & Potassium.
​
https://alio.ai

Anocca AB

Anocca is a privately held medical biotechnology company dedicated to establishing an engineered human cell-based discovery, validation and clinical development platform for deciphering T-cell immunity and delivering next generation T-cell therapies. Based in modern facilities in Södertälje, near Stockholm, Sweden, Anocca has built up a talented team of almost 50 scientists from 23 different nations.

The fully operational industrialized platform comprises integrated cell biology and genetics modules and is capable of rapidly and systematically identifying and validating antigen/T-cell receptor (TCR) combinations to access a virtually unlimited target space. The platform is underpinned by proprietary, purpose-built IT infrastructure and data handling capability. Alongside, Anocca has established an advanced GMP manufacturing facility to produce cellular therapeutics for clinical use.

Anocca is leveraging its technology platform and manufacturing capabilities to deliver candidates for TCR-modified T-cell therapies in highly segmented patient populations within oncology. 

Complementary clinical programs with a fully individualized strategy for targeting the unique aspects of an individual’s cancer cells will also be deployed. Anocca’s technologies will enable the delivery of these transformative cellular therapies for a wide range of cancer types, in almost any individual. 

Beyond oncology, Anocca’s platform has been designed for broad use in distinct applications. In particular, this includes the design and deployment of prophylactic vaccines for a wide range of pathogens and for tolerization of autoimmunity.

​https://www.anocca.com/

Anticancer Bioscience Ltd.

Anticancer Bioscience (ACB) was founded by pioneers in synthetic lethal approaches to precision oncology. The company mission is to apply our innovative libraries and platforms in cancer biology, to discover novel mechanisms to induce cancer cell death, without harming healthy cells. This will enable us to develop breakthrough precision cancer therapies that are safer and more effective.

​www.anticancerbio.com

Apaxen SA

Apaxen is developing small molecule MIF-inhibitors for treatment of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension (PAH) and other chronic inflammatory diseases. Lead compound MFC-1040 is expected to start clinical testing in Q1 2022.

​www.apaxen.com

Brenus Pharma

Brenus Pharma is a private French innovative biotech developing allogeneic cellular vaccines to treat cancer thanks to its unique, patented and scalable technology. The pIatform allows derisking strategies with multiple candidate generation, cost and time effective scale-up, non-competitive market entrance in combination with standards of care, strong IP worldwide spread and highly skilled team backed by academics.
​
Our first therapeutic candidate shows robust evidence of efficacy in animal models of metastatic colorectal cancer. Regulatory toxicity study is positive.
Characterization of our first vaccine shows data supporting efficacy in other indications.

Brenus Pharma is ending its pre-Series A round and preparing its Series A for end-2021 with a significantly increased valuation in between. This series A will support our phase 1/2 basket trial by S1 2023 in EU and US.

http://www.brenus-pharma.com/

GliaPharm

GliaPharm is a Geneva based biotech company focusing on brain energy metabolism as a therapeutic target for neurological diseases. The company has developed molecules that restore brain energy metabolism and a proprietary drug discovery platform with specific knowhow on glial cells and brain energy metabolism. 

www.gliapharm.com

Limula SA​

We believe automated and distributed production will enable the transformative potential of personalised cancer treatments. To fulfil this vision, Limula SA is building a self-contained device for the robust and safe manufacturing of autologous cell therapies.

Our innovative approach to cell therapy manufacturing is enabling all actors involved in their development and later commercialisation, with the potential to offer a new engagement model with clinicians in the delivery of personalised medicine.

As a platform technology, our solution supports the scale out of cell therapy production; it was designed to accommodate every step of the ‘vein-to-vein’ process in a single device. Our closed system removes the need for large sterile facilities, and eliminates superfluous manual interventions.

https://limula-biotech.com/

Macrophage Pharma Ltd.

Macrophage Pharma leverage our proprietary ESM™ to rationally design first-in-class myeloid-specific small molecules to induce selective functional reprogramming of myeloid cells across a number of serious human diseases. The ESM™ technology allows us combine pathway-specific pharmacology with cell-specific drug targeting when designing drugs with focused pharmacology, increased potency and sustained target engagement.

Our preclinical pipeline includes programs against key myeloid pathways including the signalosome, necrosome and inflammasome in indications spanning chronic inflammation, autoimmune disease, fibrosis and immuno-oncology.
​
​www.macrophagepharma.com/

PDC*line Pharma SA

PDC*line Pharma is a clinical-stage spin-off of the French Blood Bank (EFS) that develops a new class of potent and off-the-shelf therapeutic cancer vaccines based on a proprietary cell line of Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cells (PDC*line). Based on a robust preclinical package and a first-in-human phase Ib in melanoma, PDC*line Pharma has initiated a clinical development in lung cancer with a new candidate (PDC*lung) and neoantigens (PDC*Neo).
​
PDC*line Pharma comprises a team of 25 persons based in Belgium (Liège, headquarters) and France (Grenoble). The company has raised nearly €31.5 M (19,5 M€ in equity and 12 M€ of non-dilutive money). The last round has been led by the Asian leading VC KIP (Ko-rean Investment Partners).
In March 2019, PDC*line Pharma granted an exclu-sive license in South Korea and exclusive option in other Asian countries to LG Chem Life Sciences Company, for the development and commercializa-tion of PDC*lung cancer vaccine for lung cancer. The total deal value is €108M (123M$) plus significant tiered royalties on net sales in Asia.

http://pdc-line-pharma.com/​

Prokarium Ltd.​

Prokarium is a venture-backed biotech company based in London developing microbial cancer immunotherapy and vaccines. Our microbial immunotherapy is based on an engineering biology platform, which has supportive safety data from 11 clinical trials in 363 active volunteers including 101 children. Prokarium recently had its first close of a Series B ($21m) to conduct clinical studies for Vesibax, our treatment against bladder cancer, and to select a second solid tumour indication. Our lead vaccine against enteric fever is fully funded by the Wellcome Trust for ph1 and ph2 studies, with phase 1 unblinded data available by Q3 2021.
​
​www.prokarium.com/

ProteKt Therapeutics Ltd.

ProteKt Therapeutics develops potent and selective small molecule inhibitors of PKR for the treatment of neurodegenerative and neuroinflammatory diseases. PKR inhibition is a novel, multimodal and potentially a disease-modifying mechanism, which will be first applied to Alzheimer’s disease patients. ProteKt completed hit to lead, identifying promising lead series, and demonstrated in vitro and in vivo proof of concept with hit compounds. The company also initiated biomarker development as part of its precision medicine approach. 

www.protektx.com

RedHill Biopharma Ltd.

RedHill Biopharma (NASDAQ: RDHL) is a fast-growing specialty biopharmaceutical company primarily focused on gastrointestinal and infectious diseases. RedHill’s U.S. commercial sales force is promoting several gastrointestinal drugs, including RedHill’s Talicia® for H. pylori infection and Movantik® for opioid induced constipation. RedHill also has a robust development pipeline with an ongoing Phase 2/3 development program for COVID-19, with recently announced positive top-line data from a US Phase 2 study, an ongoing Phase 3 study for pulmonary NTM infections and additional Phase 2 and Phase 3 development programs.

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

Viral medicines such as gene therapies, vaccines and oncolytic viruses are scientifically promising but have many challenges when it comes to production and efficacy at scale. The worldwide shortage of virus production capacity and the fact that only a very few gene therapies have been approved, illuminate the need for an enabling technology. It is a well-accepted fact that cellular anti-viral defences reduce the efficacy of these therapies and those same defences impair the production yield during manufacturing, resulting in a very inefficient and expensive process. Virica is the first company to develop and commercialize Viral Sensitizers (VSEs™) as a solution to these challenges. VSEs are patented small molecules, including known drugs and novel synthetic compounds, that transiently target antiviral pathways in cells and thus, can increase both virus production and therapeutic efficacy of viral medicines.  

Virica's business model includes developing and supplying VSEs as manufacturing reagents to clients and deploying VSEs to build better therapies. As VSEs routinely increase production yield by greater than 5X, one can understand why Virica is already selling product and why industry interest is so high. Short term revenue generated by the manufacturing business will be complemented by significant longer term revenue generated through out-licensing of an internally developed pipeline of enhanced oncolytic virus therapeutics and other co-developed products. Virica’s leadership and advisory team has a strong scientific foundation and is experienced in building and running hypergrowth companies. The company is looking to raise a Series A round of US$5 million, which will lever the early traction that the company has generated to realize Virica’s full potential.

https://www.viricabiotech.com/

wmt ag

WMT is a small molecule drug discovery company focussed on novel game-changing targets for the treatment of solid cancers.

Our Pirin modulators cease Warburg metabolism in highly glycolytic tumours thereby reduced lactate resulting in an increased immuno surveillance. The also inhibit viral replication in e.g. SARS-CoV-2 infected cells through the same mechanism.

Our FXR agonists stimulate liver cells to recruit tumor-agressive innate immune cells against hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tumour nodules.

Our goal is it to develop novel medicines that boost the acitivity of existing either chemotherapeutic or immune checkpoint inhibitor regimen in HCC (FXR) or other advance "Warburgish", i.e. glycolytic tumors.

www.wm-therapeutics.com

5 minute showcases

Adiposs Ltd.

ADIPOSS is a Swiss IND stage life science company developing a first-in-class medical imaging products and technologies for body wasting in patients with cancer and chronic diseases.

ADIPOSS has a world-class team combining scientists, drug developers, clinicians and life-science entrepreneurs.

Our mission is making body wasting visible. We will change body wasting from hugely underdiagnosed fatal condition into a preventable condition giving patients with cancer and chronic diseases a better quality of life and a better change to survive.

Brown adipose tissue, also called brown fat, is responsible for non-shivering thermogenesis. It plays a key role in glucose and lipid metabolism and regulating energy homeostasis. Having just the right quantity of active BAT is very important for human health. Having too little of it leads to obesity and metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes. On the other hand, too much BAT results in increased energy expenditure in patients with cancer and chronic diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic kidney disease, HIV/AIDS and others.

ADIPOSS flagship product is ImageBAT. This is the first-in-class product for non-invasive detection of brown fat and early body wasting with a fast and pain-free medical CT scan. ImageBAT is an add-on product that patients drink prior to their regular CT scan.

ADIPOSS has successfully finished preclinical and IND-enabling studies with ImageBAT in Q4 2020 and received MHRA endorsement to start clinical development. The company will perform a phase I / IIa clinical trial in 2021-2022 followed by phase II / III studies in 2022-2023. The main indications for ImageBAT are body wasting in cancer and COPD patients.

https://adiposs.com/

eit health showcases

​Indicate Solutions S.L.

Indicate Solutions is working on REPViT, a Rapid, Economic, Easy-to-use, SARS-CoV-2 molecular virus test in a pregnancy-test format.

A revolutionary alternative to COVID-19 PCR testing whenever and wherever needed.

"PCR in your pocket"

The REPViT technology offers the market a number of key benefits, which are not possible with current technologies:

1) Scalability, the REPViT technology does not require any manufacturing that is not available at large scale (i.e. no electronics, microfluidics, optics etc), does not use enzymes and does not require large laboratory equipment or specialist staff. This allows the test to be deployed rapidly meeting demand needed to contain even very virulent virus infections.

2) Flexibility, the REPViT technology is easy to use, not sensitive to temperature and can be prepared in a home-test kit format, applied in all geographies, and most circumstances such as work, school, transport, hospital, care home or football stadium. It can be adapted to detect additional virus-based airborne infectious diseases.

3) Marketability, due to the simplicity of handling and application of the REPViT test, it can be sold as a B2B product to doctors and hospitals or as B2C in form of a home-test kit through chemists or pharmacies and drugstores. Its comfortable application (using saliva from spitting and without intrusive nasal or buccal swabbing) will make it the preferred test.

4) Cost, the low production cost of the REPViT tests allows for the test to be used by all income levels and a number of tests can be used in sequence, to increase accuracy. This would allow the pandemic to be contained more effectively and infection rates to be kept low.

5) Adaptability, in 2021 to Covid-19/Influenza and subsequently other infectious diseases caused by viruses, and at a later stage, by bacteria.

​indicate.solutions/

​Kyme NanoImaging Srl

Kyme NanoImaging Srl (Naples, Italy) is an innovative startup established in April 2018 and was born as a spin-off project of the “Center for Advanced Biomaterials for Healthcare” of the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia of Naples in collaboration with the University of Naples “Federico II” and, for its development, takes advantage of the expertise available at those.

The company produces injectable medical products for Medical Imaging by combining FDA-approved biomaterials with clinically used contrast agents, tracers, and drugs through a patented nanotechnology platform. The platform is based on microfluidics, which allows scalable, controllable, and continuous production at a low cost.

Kyme NanoImaging Srl formulations are able to enhance the efficacy and improve the safety profile of the encapsulated diagnostic/therapeutic agents by exploiting the physical and chemical properties of the biomaterials.

The proof of concept is published in peer-reviewed journals. The products are manufactured prototypes and have been successfully tested in animals.

So far, Kyme NanoImaging Srl raised around 300k€ in pre-seed and seed fundings, made a first scale-up of its production facility, is the owner of two exclusive patent licenses, and is developing further patent-pending formulations.

​www.kymenanoimaging.com/

​Limno Pharma

Limno Pharma is a pharmaceutical company dedicated to the research and development of new drugs for the treatment of ophthalmic diseases, based on two exclusively licensed patents. Our initial focus is on the treatment of two retinal degenerative diseases, retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Today, the only medical treatment for RP is a gene therapy (Luxturna®) and its costs is $ 425,000 per eye. In addition, it is only indicated for patients with a specific mutation (RPE65). 

AMD affects 190 million worldwide. Wet AMD, affecting 10% of patients, is treated with anti-VEGF intravitreal injections whereas dry AMD, affecting 90% of patients, has no treatment.

Our first product, LIM21, is a chemical derivative of a natural product which shows high efficacy decreasing the symptoms of RP and dry AMD in mouse models.

The main competitive advantage of LIM21 over current treatments and others under development, is the administration as eye drops. In addition, since it is not a gene therapy, all RP patients, with any type of mutation, can benefit from this treatment.
​
Around 253 million people live with visual disabilities worldwide due to RP, AMD and diabetic retinopathy (DR). Limnopharma’s drugs have great potential as an effective and patient-friendly therapy for these pathologies and developing our drugs will improve the quality of life of millions of people worldwide

limnopharma.com/en/

​Ochre Bio Ltd

Ochre Bio develops genomic medicines for cardiometabolic disease. Ochre employs spatial sequencing, advanced genomics, and high-throughput screening to identify disease-causing genes, and develops combination therapies which are tested in donor livers kept alive outside of the body. Our scientific roots can be traced back over 15 years leading liver genomics research, and experience in bringing advanced therapies to market. Privately held, Ochre Bio is situated within the heart of Oxford’s biotech innovation hub. 

www.ochre-bio.com.

SideROS

SideROS is a preclinical-stage biotech company focused on accelerated development of innovative small molecules targeting tumor cells metabolism in high-risk cancers with poor prognosis.
​
Patients with a cancer encountered relapse and metastasis, because of persistent cancer cells. Ironomycin, our first lead, interferes in iron metabolism, leading to the death of persistent cancer cells. SideROS aims to bring ironomycin on the market in the shortest timeline, with a clinical development focused on hematological indications (NHL & AML) and resistant breast cancer. We have already strong preclinical data supporting our clinical development plan as well as an iron score, developed as a prognosis marker, which is predictive of poor outcompetes in NHL population and identifies the population, who may benefit from ironomycin targeted therapy.

​sideros.bio