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Abbott Biotech Ventures, Inc. (ABVI) is a subsidiary of Abbott dedicated to making venture capital investments in emerging biotech and pharmaceutical companies. Unlike traditional venture capital firms, ABVI characterizes an investment’s success by its potential to significantly increase Abbott’s strategic growth, and not solely by its financial return. ABVI Investment Focus ABVI’s area of focus is on emerging biotech and pharmaceutical companies that have the potential to provide long-term strategic growth options for Abbott. Companies with programs ranging from pre-clinical (18 months prior to first-in-human) to early proof-of-concept are of highest interest for potential investment by ABVI. Given the early stage nature of these investments, ABVI will often syndicate with other venture capital investors or participate as a follow-on investor in a syndicated venture. ABVI Investment Criteria ABVI is interested in promising opportunities with large markets, differentiated competitive advantages, strong intellectual property protection, and viable clinical and reimbursement pathways. ABVI invests in areas that are strategic to Abbott such as neuroscience, immunology, cardiology, virology, and oncology, as well as emerging or more opportunistic areas of innovation that have the potential to complement Abbott’s existing portfolio or to expand Abbott’s future business reach. ABVI uses a rigorous, systematic process to identify, screen, and select opportunities. The team uses both internal and external experts to help assess technical and commercial opportunities for potential investments. In addition, ABVI looks for companies with a managerial team that has a strong track record in identifying and developing successful commercial opportunities.

BioCrea turns concepts into drug candidates. BioCrea is creating new drugs for the treatment of debilitating diseases of the central nervous system. With industry background and an international leadership team BioCrea provides new, first-in-class drug candidates for pharmaceutical companies.

BioCrea’s ability in inventing new treatments led to partnerships with Boehringer-Ingelheim, Pfizer, Wyeth and GlaxoSmithKline. They validate the company’s technology.

BioCrea is ideally positioned to provide new CNS drugs. Unique expertise and technology was integrated at BioCrea to generate new treatments. BioCrea’s patient-to-screen platform combines patient derived genetic information with the screening process and thus makes the outcome less dependent on biological hypothesis of CNS diseases.

Targeting toxic oligomers in misfolded protein diseases is the basis for Crossbeta’s stable oligomer drug discovery platforms which are accessible for partnering in therapeutic areas such as Alzheimer´s, Parkinson’s, Huntington and Diabetes Type 2.

In our Alzheimer program we have recently completed a high throughput screening campaign with 100,000 compounds resulting in the selection of 5 hit classes with >50%  neutralizing effect on oligomer-induced neurotoxicity.

Stable oligomers can also be used as reference in biomarker assays.

Hermo Pharma Ltd is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company discovering and developing cutting-edge therapeutic products and approaches for currently untreatable medical needs in the field of neurology. Company’s headquarter is located in Helsinki, Finland. The company outsources the majority of operational R&D tasks to external vendors, while controlling the key technology assets and strategic partnerships.

The company’s R&D programs are based on scientifically innovative concepts. These concepts are being developed by the company through preclinical and clinical Phase II proof-of-principal trials and after that Hermo Pharma will seek partnerships to support Phase III trials and market its products worldwide. Currently Hermo Pharma’s product development focus is on novel disease-modifying treatments for amblyopia in adults and Parkinson’s disease.

Amblyopia in Adults. The project is currently in Phase IIa clinical trials and the results seems very promising. Company is expecting to out-license this product latest in early 2014.

Parkinson´s Disease. Company is currently finalizing the pre-clinical proof-of-concepts studies with the support of M.J.Fox Foundation financing. The therapy is based on the neuroprotective and restorative effects provided by the CDNF protein. The clinical strategy includes of testing of intracrainial delivery platform to treat the patients. The current data looks very promising and the company is expecting to proceed into the IND enabling Toxicology phase during year 2013.  

Ipsen is a global specialty-driven pharmaceutical company with total sales exceeding €1.1 billion in 2011. Ipsen’s ambition is to become a leader in specialty healthcare solutions for targeted debilitating diseases. Its development strategy is supported by four franchises: neurology / Dysport®, endocrinology / Somatuline®, uro-oncology / Decapeptyl® and hemophilia. Moreover, the Group has an active policy of partnerships. R&D is focused on innovative and differentiated technological patientdriven platforms, peptides and toxins. In 2011, R&D expenditure totaled more than €250 million, above 21% of Group sales. The Group has total worldwide staff of close to 4,500 employees.

Ipsen’s shares are traded on segment A of Euronext Paris (stock code: IPN, ISIN code: FR0010259150) and eligible to the “Service de Règlement Différé” (“SRD”). The Group is part of the SBF 120 index. Ipsen has implemented a Sponsored Level I American Depositary Receipt (ADR) program, which trade on the over-the-counter market in the United States under the symbol IPSEY. For more information on Ipsen, visit www.ipsen.com.

Oryzon is a biomarker discovery company with a dual therapeutic pipeline in oncology and neurodegeneration.   Founded in 2000, and venture backed from 2002, Oryzon has a strong focus in EPIGENETIC TARGETS with a special emphasis in Histone Lysine Demethylases being a global leader on Lysine Specific Demethylase1. LSD1 has been proposed as a target for oncology, viral diseases and neurodegeneration. Two recent papers in NatureMedicine and CancerCELL stablished proof of concept data that support the use of LSD1 inhibitors in acute myeloid leukemia. Oryzon has two preclinical programs with different preclinical candidates LSD1i, one in leukemia and the other in Huntington disease. Phase I/IIa studies are expected to start in early 2013.

In Oncology, we also develop new non invasive early diagnostics tools. Our first product GynEC®-DX consists on a new set of markers for triage in endometrial cancer from uterine aspirates.

The PROTAGEN GROUP is a leading provider of solutions for the

Pharmaceutical and Biotech industries, supporting drug development towards

personalized medicines and GMP compliant protein characterization services

of outstanding quality.

The PROTAGEN GROUP consists of PROTAGEN AG with a clear focus on

diagnostics, and PROTAGEN Protein Services GmbH (PPS) providing GMP

compliant protein analysis.

PROTAGEN AG has developed the proprietary UNIarray® platform to support

patient stratification and the development of Companion Diagnostics (CDx)

using the diagnostic power of autoantibody signatures in blood. We combine

our outstanding know-how in biostatistics and expertise in Protein arrays and

Luminex technology for the development of novel diagnostic assays. Our R&D

focus is on chronic diseases, e.g. neurodegenerative disorders, endometriosis,

autoimmune diseases such as Rheumatoid Arthritis, Systemic Lupus

Erythematosus and Multiple Sclerosis as well as selected cancer indications,

e.g. Prostate-, Breast-, Ovarian-, Colon- and Pancreatic Cancer.

PROTAGEN Protein Services GmbH (PPS)

is a reliable partner for GMP compliant characterization of biotherapeutics

(NBEs) and biosimilar comparability, including stability and release testing.

PPS combines unique expertise in bioinformatics for protein mass spectrometry

with a long track record in protein chemistry and protein analytics in order to

provide the best quality available. In addition, we provide customer support for

all relevant regulatory issues to match with current regulatory requirements

(FDA, EMA, KFDA) for protein drugs.

Selcia Ltd., headquartered in Ongar, Essex, UK and with a branch in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, is a leading worldwide provider of contract research services. Selcia operates two divisions, Selcia Discovery and Selcia Radiochemistry. Whilst Radiochemistry specializes in 14C GMP radiolabelling, Selcia Discovery provides integrated small molecule drug discovery to pharmaceutical and biotech clients. Besides general medicinal chemistry and biology capabilities applicable across all target classes, Selcia Discovery has a particular strength in three unique and highly synergistic technologies: (1) medicinal chemistry on complex natural products, (2) capillary electrophoresis-based fragment and natural product screening, (3) peptidyl-prolyl isomerase targets (cyclophilins, FKBPs, Pin1, together called PPIases). Whilst relatively neglected by pharmaceutical companies in the past, understanding of the involvement of PPIases in many diseases is currently emerging. All PPIase inhibitors presently in clinical use or in development are natural products, natural product derivatives or have structures inspired by natural products.

The combination of these technologies has enabled Selcia to deliver several clinical PPIase inhibitors to clients, but has also generated IP for Selcia, which was recently demerged into a new company, Mitopharm Ltd. Mitopharm is in advanced license negotiations for a breakthrough drug in the field of acute and chronic neurodegenerative diseases. Other applications in the fields of chronic inflammatory diseases, oncology, COPD, and virus infections will be developed by Mitopharm either via investment or via joint R&D programs with pharmaceutical companies. 

SOM Biotech has developed a proprietary Drug Repurposing technology platform for discovery of new therapeutic indications for given drugs, which we are offering to partners for expanding their drug pipeline.

During the last 34 months we have validated 41 new indications, with 18 positive hits (43%), of which 3 cover clear medical need indications:

SOM0777 for the treatment of Glioma, already licensed to Argon Pharma and Draconis Pharma.

SOM0226 for the treatment of TTR-Amyloidosis. Orphan Disease. Phase II planned for 1Q 2013.

SOM0606 for the topical treatment of Psoriasis, in preclinical development. Phase II expected for 4Q 2013.

25 more repurposing programs per year are running to file the advanced company pipeline.