Bodyport Inc
Bodyport’s mission is to prevent and ultimately eliminate heart disease by empowering every person with high quality, actionable health information in their home.
Year of investment: 2019; BIVF Board Representative: Stefan Pflanz
www.bodyport.com
Acousia Therapeutics GmbH
Acousia Therapeutics GmbH is a privately held biotech company based in Tübingen, 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
HepaRegenix GmbH
HepaRegenix GmbH, founded in 2016, is a spin-off out of the University of Tübingen (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-disciplinary 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 of action.
Rewind Therapeutics
Rewind Therapeutics is developing first-in-class therapies for myelin-related diseases and aims to bring them into fast-track clinical development.
The Company was founded by KU Leuven’s Centre for Drug Design and Discovery (CD3) and Axxam S.p.A. (Milano, Italy). Rewind Therapeutics works in close collaboration with both organisations and a world-class academic network to advance its discovery and development activities. Rewind Therapeutics completed a €15.2 million Series A financing in January 2018, which was led by Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, M Ventures BV and the Flemish investment company PMV, together with CD3 and KU Leuven Gemma Frisius Fonds.
Aelin Therapeutics
The company pioneers a novel modality in drug development to develop a complete new class of antibiotics and first in class therapeutics against high value typical undruggable human targets. The technology, branded Pept-insTM, harnesses the power of protein aggregation to specifically induce a functional knockdown of a target protein. Aelin Therapeutics was founded by VIB and its partner universities KU Leuven, VUB, UGent, based on the ground-breaking work of renowned structural biologists Prof Joost Schymkowitz and Prof Frederic Rousseau. Aelin Therapeutics raised €27 million in a Series A financing round in December 2017 with a strong investor syndicate including LSP (the Netherlands), PMV (Belgium), Novartis Venture Fund (Switzerland), Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (Germany) and Fund+ (Belgium).
Year of investment: 2017; BIVF Board Representative: Frank Kalkbrenner
www.aelintx.com
Brainomix, Ltd.
Brainomix, Ltd. focuses on imaging software for neurological and cerebrovascular diseases and developed a software tool (e-ASPECTS) for the automated analysis of CT scans to detect early ischemic changes in the brain of patients with clinical signs of stroke. Brainomix is a spin-out from the University of Oxford, UK.
C-mo Medical Solutions
C-mo Medical Solutions is a Digital Health start-up that develops solutions for the diagnosis and management of cough-incident medical conditions. The company’s mission is to unravel the clinical potential of cough assessment and solve the bold unmet medical need associated with the management of chronic cough.
eTheRNA immunotherapies NV
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: Frank Kalkbrenner
www.etherna.be
Eyevensys S.A.S.
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: Johannes Zanzinger
www.eyevensys.com
Imcheck Therapeutics SAS
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.
DiogenX
DiogenX specializes in the development of pancreatic beta cell modulators for the treatment of Type 1 (T1D) and Type 2 Diabetes (T2D). The company’s lead asset is a protein capable of regenerating in vivo a functional pancreatic beta cell mass, potentially offering patients clear benefits in terms of both survival rates and quality of life. DiogenX is based in Marseille, France with labs in Nice. Its asset originated from Dr. Patrick Collombat’s laboratory (Inserm, CNRS, Nice University).
Year of investment: 2020; BIVF Board Representative: Johannes Zanzinger
www.diogenx.com
Perfood GmbH
Perfood analyzes glycemic responses to meals, activity, symptoms, medication and gut microbiome on the basis of machine learning algorithms. This results in a pipeline of digital therapeutics based on personalized low-glycemic diet. At the same time, Perfood builds up a rich dataset for phenotyping.
Year of investment: 2020; BIVF Board Representative: Oliver Reuß
www.perfood.de
T3 Pharmaceuticals AG
The vision of T3 Pharmaceuticals is to improve the lives of cancer patients with highly innovative treatments. Despite significant advances of classical therapies, there remains a high need for novel and innovative medicines to treat cancer. T3 Pharmaceuticals is dedicated to filling this gap by developing highly specific and efficient treatments using live bacteria.
T3 Pharmaceuticals was founded in May 2015 by Simon Ittig, Christoph Kasper, Marlise Amstutz and Helmut Kessmann as a spin-off of the University of Basel. The team has developed an efficient protein delivery technology that is based on the use of live bacteria. While the technology has diverse applications in research, T3 Pharma has further developed the system to serve as a novel therapeutic to treat solid tumors.
Promethera Biosciences
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; Former BIVF Board Representative: Ilka Wicke (until 2018)
www.promethera.com
OncoMyx Therapeutics, Inc.
OncoMyx Therapeutics is developing oncolytic immunotherapies based on the myxoma virus (MYXV) platform to orchestrate an immune response and treat cancer. Successful immuno-oncology (IO) cancer treatment generally requires combination therapy, and oncolytic viruses (OVs) have emerged as a safe and effective IO complement.
Their MYXV platform, spun-out from Arizona State University (ASU), is poised to be a best-in-class OV approach. They have assembled the top OV team around MYXV to advance a pipeline of oncology therapeutics for the benefit of cancer patients.
Year of investment: 2019, BIVF Board Representative: Kanad Das
www.oncomyx.com
Topas Therapeutics
Topas Therapeutics is a private Hamburg-based biotechnology company focused on developing peptide-loaded nanoparticles to address immuno-tolerization of major unmet clinical need, including autoimmune diseases, allergies and anti-drug antibodies. Topas’ technology platform induces antigen-specific immune tolerance by harnessing the liver’s natural immuno-tolerizing capabilities.
Wellth
Wellth, Inc. applies behavioral economics through a mobile first, financial incentive focused behavior change platform to achieve better adherence, engagement, and health. The solution serves the most common chronic conditions. Wellth is headquartered in Brooklyn, NY.
Year of investment: 2018; BIVF Board Representative: Adam Kundzewicz
www.wellthapp.com
Libra Therapeutics
Libra Therapeutics is focused on developing novel disease-modifying therapeutics that can restore the cellular balance disrupted in neurodegenerative diseases. These include amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, frontotemporal dementia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Huntington's disease, which are all characterized by cellular disequilibrium caused by the production and decreased clearance of neurotoxic proteins. The company’s therapeutic platform is uniquely positioned to discover and develop small molecule drugs with distinct molecular approaches that can 1) increase autophagy to more rapidly clear toxic proteins and 2) attenuate the production of neurotoxic proteins.
RinRi Therapeutics Ltd.
RinRi Therapeutics Ltd. was incorporated in November 2018 by Prof. Dr. Marcelo Rivolta and the University of Sheffield. RinRi develops a cellular Advanced Therapy Medicinal Product (ATMP) using pre-determined human embryonic stem cells towards first-in-men trials for implantation into the cochlear of patients suffering from sensorineural hearing loss. RinRi is based in Sheffield, UK.
Abalos Therapeutics GmbH
Abalos Therapeutics has harnessed the unique immune stimulation of the arenavirus to develop a novel anti-cancer approach that provides the full breadth of the immune system’s power specifically against cancer cells. Through viral replication within cancer cells, Abalos’ arenavirus-based drug candidates are designed to awake precise immune responses and activate all relevant immune cell types against primary tumors and metastases. Led by experienced biotech entrepreneurs and immunology pioneers, Abalos’ goal is to achieve a quantum leap in immuno-oncology.
Year of investment: 2019; BIVF Board Representative: Sebastian Kreuz
www.abalos-tx.com
Actym Therapeutics
Actym Therapeutics is an immunotherapy company that aims to discover and develop attenuated Salmonella Typhimurium strains as a systemic delivery agent to allow for local expression of multiple therapeutic proteins selectively in the tumor microenvironment for the treatment of solid tumor indication(s). Actym's technology platform is designed to harness the body's natural immune system to modify the tumor microenvironment and allows for targeting immune pathways that are intractable using conventional small molecule or antibody-based therapeutics.
Rgenta
Rgenta is developing a pipeline of oral, small-molecule RNA-targeting medicines with an initial focus on oncology and neurological disorders. The company’s proprietary platform mines the massive genomics data to identify targetable RNA processing events and design small-molecule glues to modulate the interactions among the spliceosome, regulatory proteins, and RNAs. Rgenta’s lead programs and unique approach are unlocking the therapeutic potential of historically undruggable targets in human diseases.
smartbax GmbH
smartbax develops novel multi-targeted, antibacterial compounds with extraordinary potency against multi-drug resistant bacteria and difficult-to-treat biofilms. With the first-in-class compounds, the company targets the multi-drug resistant pathogens methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE). The new class of antibiotic compounds is based on the research by Prof. Stephan Sieber and his team at Technical University Munich. smartbax GmbH was incorporated in 2021 and is based in Munich. Due to the increasing prevalence of resistance against marketed antibiotics, smartbax addresses a need which is growing dramatically.
Year of investment: 2021; BIVF Board Representative: Sebastian Kreuz
www.smartbax.de
Aignostics GmbH
Aignostics, a spin-off from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the Berlin Institute of Health, is pioneering computational pathology for pharmaceutical research and diagnostics. Its proprietary "Explainable AI" platform draws on research from Fraunhofer Society, Charité, and TU Berlin to overcome the typical "black-box" problem of AI in pathology. Aignostics' focus lies on developing bespoke AI models for clinical trials and CDx development.
Tacalyx GmbH
Founded in 2019, Tacalyx GmbH is a spin-off out of the Max-Planck-Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, Germany. The Department of Biomolecular Systems led by Prof. Dr. Peter H. Seeberger pioneered the chemical synthesis of ultrapure cancer-associated carbohydrate antigens (TACA) for the generation of high-affinity and selective antibody scaffolds. Tacalyx will profile the antibody panels for functional modulation of tumor cells and/or immune cells in the tumor micro-environment. Antibodies with functional modulating, as well as drug like properties will be developed for towards clinical testing in various solid tumor indications.
Year of investment: 2019; BIVF Board Representative: Alexander Ehlgen
www.tacalyx.com
Dopavision GmbH
Dopavision GmbH is developing a digital therapeutic for myopia which can be seamlessly and invisibly integrated while using a smartphone. The technology projects a light stimulus from a screen (e.g., a smartphone) into the eye to activate a neurotransmitter cascade which influences the correct development of the eyeball and thereby correct vision. Dopavision is headquartered in Berlin, Germany.
T-knife GmbH
T-knife GmbH is a spin-off of the Max-Delbrück-Center (MDC) founded in 2015 by Prof. Thomas Blankenstein. Derived from T-knife’s proprietary Humanized TCR Mice, the Berlin-based Biotech company develops T cell receptors (TCR) for adoptive T cell therapy. The Humanized TCR mice carry the entire human TCRαβ gene loci and recombine a broad repertoire of fully human TCRs. In addition, the transgenic expression of human HLA molecules allows ‘human-like’ presentation of antigens via the transgenic HLA to the fully human TCRs. This technology allows highly efficient generation and selection of TCRs for virtually any human tumor antigen. Since the mouse immune system is not tolerant to most human cancer antigens the obtained TCRs are expected to show optimal affinity for cancer therapy. The company has a broad expertise in tumor target selection, TCR sequence isolation and optimization, transgenic TCR expression and characterization. A clinical phase I trial with T-knife´s TCR lead candidate targeting MAGE-A1 for patients with multiple myeloma will start recruiting in 2019 in cooperation with Charité. T-knife is based in Berlin, Germany.
Year of investment: 2019; BIVF Board Representative: Frank Kalkbrenner (until 2021)
QUANTRO Therapeutics
QUANTRO will combine and exploit innovative technologies in the areas of functional-genetics and transcriptomics to generate an unprecedented cancer drug discovery pipeline transforming the precision and scope of cell-based compound screens.
Delonix Bioworks
Delonix Bioworks is a biotech company leveraging synthetic biology approaches and gene editing to develop the next generation medical solutions to infectious diseases and cancer. The company’s research programs focus on rational design and programming of bacteria as living medicines.
Year of investment: 2021; BIVF Board Representative: Yifang Cui
RiboX Therapeutics
RiboX Therapeutics is a Shanghai based Biotech Company focused on discovery and development of fully engineered circular RNA therapeutics - a new class of RNA medicines which can overcome current limitations of mRNA therapeutics and realize the full potential of RNA medicines. The company was founded by world-leading scientists from RNA biology and nanomedicine field. The management team are industrial veterans from Roche, Merck, Bayer with extensive experience in early discovery, drug delivery and translational medicine.
Year of investment: 2021; BIVF Board Representative: Frank Kalkbrenner
Nuevocor
Headquartered in Singapore, Nuevocor focuses on developing AAV gene therapy vectors bearing therapeutic cargo for the treatment of genetically defined cardiac diseases with high unmet need. Leveraging its novel target discovery platform, and a genetic modifier approach to gene therapy, Nuevocor aims to meaningfully improve the quality of life for patients with presently incurable genetic heart disease.
STRM.BIO
STRM.BIO is a pre-clinical, VC-backed biotechnology company that is leveraging extracellular vesicles (EVs) to deliver gene therapies in vivo. At STRM.BIO, we are developing a better way to deliver gene therapy: simpler, safer, affordable. Our proprietary EV platform is designed to bring treatment directly to the patient, without the complexity and side effects of virus-based, ex-vivo processes – still the most common. And our approach to EVs will make it easier to scale up manufacturing and bring costs down. Our work will lead to new treatments and make existing ones more effective, opening the door to the future of medicine to patients fighting rare diseases worldwide.
Year of investment: 2021; BIVF Board Representative: Fei Shen
www.strm.bio
TigaTx
TigaTx is unleashing the tumor killing power of neutrophils using its first-in-class, engineered IgA monoclonal antibody platform. Neutrophils are increasingly being recognized as key players in cancer, yet there are no immuno-oncology drugs to-date that successfully harness neutrophil effector functions. Neutrophils are known to infiltrate many different cancer types, inherently possess the capacity to kill cancer cells via IgA/CD89-dependent and -independent mechanisms, and are known to cross-talk with other innate and adaptive immune cells to propagate the immune response, including T cell response. TigaTx’s proprietary engineered IgA platform overcomes prior manufacturing challenges for IgA, thus enabling a promising new class of biologics for the treatment of cancer patients.
Year of investment: 2020; BIVF Board Representative: Stefan Pflanz
xCures, Inc.
The xCures platform transforms complex unstructured medical data directly from the patient’s medical records into structured data suitable for analysis and machine learning. Our A.I. engine then actively cross-references this data against the vast digital library of oncology data to match patients with potential treatments and predict outcomes. This empowers patients and their oncologists to make more informed and effective treatment decisions.
Year of investment: 2021; BIVF Board Representative: Fei Shen
www.xcures.com
Asgard Therapeutics AB
Asgard Therapeutics AB focusses on the development of groundbreaking cancer immunotherapies based on gene therapy-mediated reprogramming of somatic cells, such as cancer cells and fibroblasts. Incorporated as a spin-off from Lund University (Sweden) in 2018, the Company is pioneering direct immune cell reprogramming with its proprietary TrojanDC technology. This is a gene therapy that directly targets somatic cells and converts their cellular identity into that of fully functional type-1 conventional dendritic cells. In case of cancer cells this induces the efficient presentation of their own (neo-)antigens to the immune system, thereby eliciting potent anti-cancer immune responses. Designed as an off-the-shelf gene therapy, Asgard´s approach overcomes many of the logistic and manufacturing hurdles of conventional cell-based therapies.
Year of investment: 2021; BIVF Board Representative: Philipp Müller
www.asgardthx.com
Optina Diagnostics
Optina Diagnostics specializes in the development of technology for early, non-invasive detection of disease via Retinal Deep PhenotypingTM. With an initial primary focus on the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, Optina addresses the pressing need of millions of patients worldwide suffering from memory loss.
Year of investment: 2021; BIVF Board Representative: Adam Kundzewicz
www.optinadx.com
ArrePath
ArrePath is a Princeton (NJ)-based company that is developing a machine learning-powered discovery platform of novel mechanism of action anti-microbial resistant drugs. The platform utilizes bacterial autopsy image recognition-based machine learning to prioritize hits with novel MoA from high-throughput phenotypic screening to significantly accelerate the identification of hits, and thus allow the rapid discovery of novel MoA proprietary antibiotics.
Centauri Therapeutics
Centauri Therapeutics is an immunotherapy company focused on the treatment of infectious diseases dedicated to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) research, using their Alphamer® platform to identify and progress novel antibacterial candidates through first-in-human trials, for difficult-to-treat infections. The Alphamer technology introduces an innovative drug mechanism that recruits and directs pre-existing antibodies specifically to pathogens, engaging both innate and adaptive immunity to elicit an immune response that clears the infection.
