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Abbott Biotech Ventures
Margarita Chavez
Director, Venture Investments, Abbott Biotech VenturesHelsinn Healthcare SA
Helsinn is a privately owned pharmaceutical group with headquarters in Lugano, Switzerland, and operating subsidiaries in Ireland and the United States. Helsinn’s business model is focused on the licensing of pharmaceuticals, medical devices and nutritional supplement products in therapeutic niche areas. Helsinn Group in-licenses early-to-late stage new chemical entities, completes their development through the performance of pre-clinical /clinical studies and Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Control (CMC) development, and files and attains their market approvals worldwide. Helsinn’s products are out-licensed to its network of local marketing and commercial partners, selected for their deep in-market knowledge and know-how whom Helsinn assists and supports by providing a full range of product and scientific management services, including commercial, regulatory financial, legal, and medical marketing advice. The active pharmaceutical ingredients and the finished products are manufactured according to the highest quality, safety, and environmental standards at Helsinn’s GMP facilities in Switzerland and Ireland and supplied worldwide to its customers. Further information on Helsinn Group is available at www.helsinn.com.
Riccardo Braglia
Managing DirectorRoberto De Ponti
Senior Director Business Development & In-Licensing
Novimmune
Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, NovImmune is a life science enterprise with a proprietary next-generation antibody drug discovery platform and expertise in advancing drug candidates from bench to bedside. The Company is applying its capabilities to realize a vision of generating drugs that provide more robust benefit to patients by attacking the cause rather than symptoms of disease. NovImmune has established a balanced pipeline of first- and best-in-class pre-clinical and clinical drug candidates with a mix of both clinically validated and novel targets.
§ CHF 182M raised from high net worth individuals, private and corporate venture funds
§ In 2009, received the European Biotechnica Award
§ In 2010, established Genentech/Roche partnership for NI-1401, anti-IL-17 drug candidate
§ In 2011, received Orphan Drug designation in Europe and the USA for, and EUR 6 million FP7 grant from the European Commission for development of NI-0501 for HLH
§ In 2012, filing to initiate important clinical studies including the first Phase II study for NI-0501 in HLH, and first-in-man study for leading anti-TLR4 drug candidate, NI-0101
§ Pursuing additional partnerships for its next-generation antibody platform as well as development and commercialization of selected drug candidates
§ Potential to independently bring selected drugs to the market for focused applications
David Slack
Head of Corporate & Business Development
Numab
Numab is a Swiss biotech company focusing on the discovery and development of therapeutic antibodies. Numab is a young company lead by a Management with proven track record in the biotech industry.
Numab applies a high-throughput selection system that increases the antibody discovery success rates by magnitudes and allows to efficiently identify best-in-class and/or first in class antibodies. The discovery engine is particularly well suited to detect antibodies against unconventional targets such as multi-spanning transmembrane proteins (e.g. GPCRs or ion channels).
Numab is pursuing proprietary antibody programs in autoimmune diseases and pain, however, also applies its breakthrough technology to discover highly potent antibodies on behalf of its partners in the pharmaceutical industry.

Dr Oliver Middendorp
Co-CEO and CBO
Dr David Urech
Co-CEO and CSO
Opsona Therapeutics Ltd
Opsona is a leading immunology drug development company, focused on novel therapeutic approaches to key targets of the innate immune system associated with a wide range of major human diseases, including autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, transplant rejection, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease and atherosclerosis.
The company was founded in 2004 by three world-renowned immunologists at Trinity College in Dublin one of Ireland’s leading academic institution with a core focus on immunology research. Opsona's lead product, a fully human monoclonal IgG4 antibody (OPN-305) targeting Toll-like-receptor-2 (TLR2) has demonstrated activity in a number of animal models & recently was tested successfully in a phase 1 clinical trial in healthy volunteers. The Company plans to conduct a two-part multi-centered, double blinded and placebo controlled clinical study to evaluate the safety, tolerability and efficacy of OPN 305 in renal transplant patients at high risk of Delayed Graft Function(DGF) as the first clinical target indication for the development of OPN-305 to be initiated in 2012.
The Company is supported by an international venture consortium including Novartis Venture Fund, Roche Venture Fund, Seroba-Kernel Life Sciences, Fountain Healthcare Partners, Inventages Venture Capital and Enterprise Ireland. Further information is available at http://www.opsona.com/.

Martin Welschof
CEO
Protagen
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.
Dr Stefan Müllner
CEO
Selcia Ltd
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.
Dr Hans Fliri
ChairmanSimon Bury
SuppreMol GmbH
SuppreMol, a privately held biopharmaceutical Company, is developing novel proteins to treat autoimmune diseases. SuppreMol has developed a novel therapeutic concept for the treatment of autoimmune diseases that relies on naturally produced Fc gamma receptors (FcγRs). The Company was founded in 2002 as a spin-off from the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry.
The Company is developing SM101 for the treatment of Primary Immune Thrombocytopenia (ITP) and Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) in Phase II clinical trials. SM101 is designed to be a specific, early onset, long lasting and well tolerated treatment for autoimmune diseases such as ITP, SLE, Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and Multiple Sclerosis (MS).
Further building its platform of selective immunoregulators, SuppreMol is working on antibody programs targeting Fc receptors and other immunomodulatory molecules for alternative treatment strategies in autoimmune conditions.