Our Portfolio

AMP Therapeutics GmbH is engaged in the discovery and commercialization of new medicines for the treatment of severe bacterial infections predominantly caused by drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. Pneumonia, bloodstream infections, surgical site infections and urinary tract infections represent a major global health threat with an unfavorable prognosis and are largely untreatable with existing antibiotics. AMPT addresses this significant unmet medical need by advancing the preclinical and clinical development of its proprietary antibacterial compounds. AMPT’s technology is based on naturally occurring antimicrobial peptides found across various species. AMPT is based in Leipzig, Germany.
Year of investment: 2011; BIVF Board Representative: Martin Heidecker

www.amp-therapeutics.com

Inserm Transfert Initiative (ITI) is a life-sciences seed and pre-seed VC fund backed by the French government as well as by private investors including several major international pharmaceutical groups. Inserm Transfert Initiative aims to support the creation of innovative biotech companies exploiting academic research excellence. With an investment volume of € 33.5 m, Inserm Transfert Initiative is aiming to support the creation and development of 15-20 academic spin offs over a 5-year period. ITI is based in Paris, France.
Year of investment: 2011; BIVF Board Representative: Frank Kalkbrenner

www.it-initiative.fr

Promethera Biosciences S.A./N.V.' mission is to develop an allogenic cell therapy approach to treat inborn metabolic liver diseases. The defect of one enzyme can lead to a life-threatening disease with short life expectation and low quality of life. Liver transplantation is often the only treatment option and very much limited due to the scarcity of matching organs and the transplantation risk. Promethera Biosciences addresses this high unmet medical need with their proprietary new progenitor cell type called HepaStem®, consisting of Heterologous human Adult Liver Progenitor Cell (hHALPC), which in pre-clinical experiments has shown the potential to overcome limitations of mature hepatocyte therapy. Promethera is a Belgian company and has started phase I/II clinical studies in March 2012.
Year of investment: 2012; BIVF Board Representative: Ilka Wicke

www.promethera.com

ArmaGen Technologies, Inc. is a developer of platform technology solutions to the blood-brain barrier problems. ArmaGen develops recombinant protein therapeutics targeting diseases of the central nervous system (CNS), which are engineered to penetrate the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Its molecular trojan horse technology has the potential to re-engineer recombinant proteins for BBB penetration for the treatment of brain and spinal cord diseases. Initially, the company will focus on orphan diseases of the CNS with lead biopharmaceuticals for Mucopolysaccharidosis (MPS) Type I, or Hurler’s syndrome and MPS Type II, or Hunter’s disease. ArmaGen is based in Calabasas/US.
Year of investment: 2012; BIVF Board Representative: Martin Heidecker

www.armagen.com

NBE Therapeutics GmbH is a Basel, Switzerland, based privately held biotechnology company dedicated to the discovery and development of innovative antibody based drugs, with an initial focus on the development of "next-generation" antibody drug conjugates (ADCs). NBE Therapeutics has developed potent antibody discovery and specific drug conjugation technologies which will allow NBE Therapeutics to efficiently develop First- and Best-In-Class product candidates to fight cancer.
Year of investment: 2013; BIVF Board Representative: Knut Elbers

www.nbe-therapeutics.com

STAT-Diagnostica & Innovation, S.L. was founded in 2010 in Barcelona (Spain) and is focused on the development of Near Patient Testing solutions where fast and accurate diagnostic results are needed. Its DiagCORE in vitro diagnostic system is a versatile, easy-to-use platform that consolidates molecular and immunoassay techniques in a single device.
Year of investment: 2013; BIVF Board Representative: Frank Kalkbrenner

www.stat-diagnostica.com

Eyevensys S.A.S. is a developer of a new non-viral gene therapy process to treat ocular illnesses. The new process enables prolonged production of therapeutic proteins through injection and electrotransfer of expression plasmids into the ciliar muscle and is aimed at treating uveitis and AMD. In stage two, Eyevensys will focus on treating more common conditions such as diabetic retinopathy.The company was founded in Paris (France) in 2009 by Francine Behar-Cohen, professor of medicine at Paris Descartes University, head of ophthalmology at l'Hotel Dieu.
Year of investment: 2013; BIVF Board Representative: Frank Kalkbrenner

www.eyevensys.com

Hookipa Biotech AG is developing a new class of innovative prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines based on its proprietary Vaxwave^® technology. The Vaxwave^® technology is a novel vaccine platform using a replication-defective viral vector based on arena virus for the prevention and treatment of multiple infectious diseases and cancer. The platform is one of the most promising new technologies for next generation vaccines due to its ability to stimulate both potent B-cell and CD8+ T-cell immune responses. Vaxwave^® vaccines can be administered repeatedly to boost the immune system. Hookipa is based in Vienna, Austria.
Year of investment: 2013; BIVF Board Representative: Frank Kalkbrenner

www.hookipabiotech.com

Acousia Therapeutics GmbH is a privately held biotech company based in Tuebingen, Germany, dedicated to identify small molecules for an innovative treatment of hearing loss. The new therapeutic approach will replace lost sensory hair cells, the key cells for hearing in the inner ear, by cellular regeneration originating from supporting cells. Acousia will develop drugs for local application, which will restore hearing in patients who have lost their hearing ability due to various reasons, e.g. noise trauma, treatment with ototoxic drugs or sudden deafness. In addition, this therapy will have the potential to treat the age-related decrease in hearing capacity.
Year of investment: 2012; BIVF Board Representative: Frank Kalkbrenner

www.acousia.com

Pcovery ApS is developing new and proprietary drugs for the treatment of human fungal infections, by addressing a novel fungal drug-target, which plays a critical role in fungal cell physiology and growth. Most fungi are not pathogenic to plants, animals or humans. However, a few fungal species can cause devastating infections in man. The most common causes of opportunistic infections are traditionally Candida albicans, Cryptococcus neoformans, Aspergillus, and Fusarium species causing serious diseases in humans, with even fatal outcome in man, in both healthy and immunocompromised individuals.
Although the present market presents a range of antifungal antibiotics for clinical use, the current management of fungal infections is restricted by drug safety, drug resistance and drug effectiveness. Accordingly there is a clear need for novel, safe and broad spectrum antifungals, as researched by Pcovery. Pcovery is based in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Year of investment: 2014; BIVF Board Representative: Ilka Wicke

www.pcovery.com

Amal Therapeutics SA is a Swiss biotech start-up company and spin-off from the University of Geneva. Amal Therapeutics was incorporated on September 3rd, 2012. Amal uses its proprietary cell penetrating peptide platform to develop and progress therapeutic vaccines in oncology. The unique properties of this platform are its capacity to stimulate a potent integrated and multi-epitopic cellular immune response targeting cancer cells. Innovative antigen design incorporating antigen presenting cell activating and maturation signals will be the basis for an highly innovative and effective protein based cancer vaccine approach.
Year of investment: 2014; BIVF Board Representative: Knut Elbers

www.amaltherapeutics.com

Metabomed Ltd. is an Israeli based newly created biotech company focused on the identifications of novel targets in the field of cancer metabolism. Based on its proprietary interdisciplinary target identification platform, Metabomed’s approach has great potential to identify new targets that form a synthetic lethal gene pair with metabolic genes inactivated in cancer cells. Inhibition of these targets results in toxic effects specific to cancer cells, with potential sparing of normal cells. The company will subsequently focus on the discovery of novel small molecule drugs directed against such targets.
Year of investment: 2014; BIVF Board Representative: Ilka Wicke

121 Bio, LLC is a Cambridge, MA-based biopharmaceutical start-up company that is developing a suite of innovative research tools for modification of proteins and cells and innovative cellular immunotherapies. 121's research tools will help drive fundamental new discoveries in protein structure/function and through systematic and deliberate modification of proteins, provide a platform for development of protein-based drugs with enhanced performance.
Year of investment: 2014; BIVF Board Representative: Martin Heidecker

www.121bio.com

Rigontec GmbH develops RNA-based proprietary retinoic acid–inducible gene I (RIG-I) activators for the treatment of cancer. The company was launched in 2014 as a spin-out from the Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Pharmacology of the University Hospital in Bonn and is based in Bonn, Germany. The optimized RIG-I agonist selectively induces apoptosis in cancer cells and as an self-vaccination approach targets efficiently various solid cancer.
Year of investment: 2014; BIVF Board Representative: Marcus Kostka

www.rigontec.de

ViraTherapeutics GmbH was formed as a spin-off out of the Medical University of Innsbruck (Austria) in April 2013. ViraTherapeutics develops a pseudotyped Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV-GP) for the use in oncolytic virotherapy. By pseudotyping with the G envelope protein of LCMV, VSV-GP displays no neurotropism, but full oncolytic potential for repeated and systemic administration - without inducing neutralizing auto-drug-antibodies (ADAs). These properties allow an effective in situ vaccination via selective tumor cell lysis and efficient initiation of systemic anti-tumor immune response. ViraTherapeutics is currently performing preclinical safety and efficacy studies for VSV-GP, and aims to conduct first clinical testing in cancer patients in 2017.
Year of investment: 2015; BIVF Board Representative: Detlev Mennerich

www.viratherapeutics.com

Sentien Biotechnologies, Inc. is a preclinical stage company developing novel approaches to cell therapy. The lead product utilizes dialysis as a drug delivery system to administer the therapeutic factors secreted from mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), which dynamically secrete factors to modulate inflammation, prevent epithelial cell death, and promote regeneration. As applied to their first indication of severe Acute Kidney Injury, (AKI), this lead product integrates seamlessly with existing standard of care, transforming dialysis from a passive, last resort option into an active therapy that can reverse the course of disease. This approach can rapidly extend into other disease where extracorporeal support is indicated, such as Acute Liver Failure, Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, and Chronic Kidney Disease. Sentien is based in Medford, MA.
Year of investment: 2015; BIVF Board Representative: Martin Heidecker

www.sentienbiotech.com

eTheRNA immunotherapies NV is a spin-off from the Brussels university 'Vrije Universiteit Brussel' (VUB), Belgium. The company continues the development of its proprietary TriMix mRNA-based immunotherapies for melanoma, breast cancer and infectious diseases. This mRNA-based technology focuses on enhancing and modulating dendritic cells which fulfill a fundamental role in eliciting the human immune response to cancer and infectious diseases.
Year of investment: 2016; BIVF Board Representative: Marcus Kostka

www.etherna.be

Tilos Therapeutics, Inc. is using the power of the immune system to develop new treatments for cancer, fibrosis and autoimmune disease. Tilos is developing antibody therapeutics that target key immunological pathways, with a primary focus on regulatory T cells and regulation of effector cells. The company's initial work is on antibodies specific for Latency Associated Peptide of TGF beta. Tilos was founded in 2016 and is based in Cambridge, MA.
Year of investment: 2016; BIVF Board Representative: Martin Heidecker

www.tilostherapeutics.com

Imcheck Therapeutics SAS, founded in 2015, is a spin-off from the Institute Paoli Calmettes in Marseilles (France). Developing innovative antibody therapeutics in the field of immuno-oncology, Imcheck Therapeutics translates the pioneering work of Prof. Daniel Olive focussing on novel checkpoint principles directly in the interplay of the innate and adaptive immune response. The team of highly motivated entrepreneurs builds on the break-through developments around PD-1, as well as CTLA-4 specific antibodies to release evasion of tumor cells from immune surveillance. Imcheck Therapeutics will focus on a proprietory group of targets to integrate the power of γδ-T cells (innate) with the of αβ-T cells (adaptive) to significantly improve the response and clinical outcome of modern immunotherapy approaches for hematological and as well as for solid tumor indications.
Year of investment: 2015; BIVF Board Representative: Detlev Mennerich

HepaRegenix GmbH, founded in 2016, is a spin-off out of the University of Tuebingen (Germany). The pioneering discovery of Prof. Lars Zender, that the inhibition of the MAP kinase kinase MKK4 leads to an overall increased capacity of liver cell regeneration, attracted a very inter-discinplinary team of experienced drug discovery seniors into HepaRegenix. The company develops a small chemical compound for the treatment of acute, chronic and/or acute-on-chronic liver failure. An upside will be the development for NASH as 2nd step, dependent on thorough pre-clinical characterization of the underlying molecular mechanism fo action.
Year of investment: 2016; BIVF Board Representative: Detlev Mennerich