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Company:
Maculus Therapeutix is a preclinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on finding practical solutions to treat chronic diseases of the retina and optic nerve such as wetAMD (Age related Macular Degeneration) in the Ophthalmology space with a novel tunable biodegradable proprietary product – MacuBloc™ capable of delivering any FDA approved drugs for Wet AMD to the site of the disease. With its unique suitability for targeted and extended delivery of drugs to back of the human eyes, MacuBloc™ offers significant benefits to Wet AMD patients over existing products: a single intravitreal injection that lasts an year instead of the current 10-12 monthly injections plus significant potential reduction in inflammation, infection, doctor visits and total cost of care compared to current practice.

Market:
The global market size of Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is currently $7.7B, growing at 7.6% CAGR and is expected to reach a value of $11B by 2025. Current standard of care involves 10-12 monthly injections with a 30 gauge syringe needle going through the eye sclera, often resulting post-injection pain and possible infection due to repeated injections in a small area as well as ruptured blood vessels in the sclera. By reducing the number of injections from 10+ to just ONE, MacuBloc™ formulation is likely to be a treatment of choice.

maintect GmbH was founded 2018 in collaboration with Mainz University Medical Center Germany by ophthalmological scientists.
maintect is developing an innovative antibody treatment for a new target instead of the well-known VEGF in wAMD (wet age-related-macular-degeneration, one of the most frequent causes of blindness). This new antibody will help the patients who don’t benefit from anti-VEGF treatment and all others. maintect applied already for patent in several countries. Combination with anti-VEGF is also an option. In parallel, the company is developing a companion diagnostic kit using lateral flow assays for anti-VEGF treatment in wAMD. This test will determine which patients will benefit most from the new treatment and will facilitate the market entrance. Furthermore, the company is interested in contract research and collaborations in building diagnostic kits.

MEDGENE is a T cell therapy biotech start-up (late pre-clinical stage) based in Maryland, USA.

- Focused on developing PD1+ peripheral blood-derived, tumor-reactive CD8+ T cell (PBTL) therapies as a platform for the treatment of solid tumors that are rare, orphan, and have critical (high) unmet need
- PBTL is a simpler, smarter version of TIL 
- PBTL is a process to select highly tumor-reactive T cells from a patient's peripheral blood based on the expression of two specific T cell surface markers: PD-1 and/or TIM-3 

- After selection, expanded to large quantities, it gets re-infused into the patient via the ACT regimen

- PBTL technology has been patented (issued) already in the US, China, the EU, Japan, Australia 
- MEDGENE has robust Clinical Development Pipelines (currently, 9 as monotherapy way)

- Looking for funding for entering Phase 1/2 in three pipelines in the US

- Looking for partnering for the Asian market (China, Japan, South Korea)

MediBase Group is an ITALIAN industrial company that has been operating since 1995 in the field of phytotherapy and medical dietetics; was one of the first companies to deal with Nutraceuticals through the preparation of products addressed exclusively to the health care professionals and distributed through the pharmacies, nursing homes and hospitals.
Titration and standardization are the most important quality criteria in the preparation of MediBase products.
The formulation of our preparations, the choice of active ingredients and their titration are based on accurate studies and analyzes of clinical works, published in the most prestigious international scientific journals, by our R&D.

MSL Pharma is an early-stage pharma company that performs ideation, analysis and identification of the underlying pathological pathways to determine how to treat diseases. The Company holds exclusive licenses from the Hebrew University & Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. There are data, patents and publications concerning the technologies.

As an early-stage company, in order to reduce overhead costs, we effectively act as the project manager – we plan the assays and subcontract the early development stages to university labs, and the later stages to CROs that specialize in the different fields. The Company monitors the results, determines next steps and fundraises for the next phases of development. We believe that working with leading experts at CROs is critical for success.

The Company has licenses for platform technologies which are progressing to several different projects; as such it is planning to out-license at various stages of development.

Synthesis of cyclic peptides which are peptidomimetics
MSL Pharma has the capability to identify “active regions” of proteins and peptides, to isolate them and to turn them into cyclic peptides which are selective for the desired receptors and stable, thereby preventing off-target activation and adverse effects (see Asset, Table 1).

Drug delivery systems for peptides and other molecules
MSL Pharma has two technologies for drug delivery (see Mode of Delivery, Table 1) that achieve unprecedented bioavailability:
1. Lipophilic prodrug charge masking (LPCM) technology for the oral delivery of peptides. This technology makes a chemical modification in a peptide to be converted to oral delivery, to produce a prodrug of this peptide. This causes it to be absorbed through the intestinal cell and once the prodrug enters the blood stream, it converts back to the original peptide. Typically, the Pgp Efflux system limits the prodrug absorption; we have overcome this with an approved self-assembling PNL (pro-nano liposphere) encapsulation system, itself a self-nanoemulsifying drug delivery system (SNEDDS), which increases prodrug solubility and inhibits the Pgp Efflux system.

2. A novel nanoparticle formulation called AmyloLipid Nanovesicles which is constructed of natural materials and therefore safe ,biodegradable and has an advantage for the delivery of peptides. This technology is used also for the delivery of other molecules, can be used for nose-to-brain, sublingual, transdermal and probably also oral delivery, and can be applied to our assets (Table 1) or existing assets (Table 2).

A novel smart multi-armed linker for targeted drug delivery
Our linker can be used for peptide-drug conjugates (PDCs), antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and nanoparticle-drug conjugates (NDCs). Our linker releases the payload (chemotherapeutic drug or fluorescent) only in the tumor cells and can bind up to three payloads (see Table 3). We have demonstrated that using two or three different drug payloads kills the tumor cells more potently and with less drug resistance developing.

Discovery of novel peptides for peptide-drug conjugates
We have technologies to synthesize novel peptides which will bind to receptors overexpressed in certain tumors so that we will be able to use them for synthesizing peptide-drug conjugates (PDCs) to diagnose and treat different tumors. We already have at our disposal peptides that bind to the five different somatostatin receptors (overexpressed in pancreatic, gallbladder, breast, ovary, prostate, melanoma, lymphoma, glioblastoma, colon and non-small-cell lung tumors) and to certain integrin receptors (overexpressed in tumors such as breast, glioblastoma, leukemic cells). 

Neuro-Zone, since 13 years, supports drug discovery, drug repurposing and research projects in the fields of inflammation and age-related pathologies.
In particular, we have developed pathology-specific platforms to generate rapid and informative data on efficacy, toxicity, metabolism and mechanism of action, supported by proprietary technologies such as MicroTISSUE (dissecting microenvironment-cell interaction in complex inflammatory scenarios) or MITOS (a comprehensive analytical platform for quantitative analysis of mitochondrial function ).
Our approach enables effective selection and ranking of the most promising candidates per indication.
Moreover, we profile candidates at different level of complexity starting from:
a) pharmacology profiling (GPCR; Ion Channel receptors)
b) identification of biochemical pathways responsible for therapeutic efficacy (transcriptomics)
c) disease modified barrier permeability (BBB and endothelial)

Investment bank focused on Nordic Life Science companies

PhysioCue is digital health and therapy device development company, located in the heart of Silicon Valley, California. PhysioCue has developed the thermal neurostimulation technology for a non-invasive hypertension therapy device and a migraine and headache therapy device and migraine and headache pain monitoring mobile app. Using our device once daily for 5-minute treatments gradually elongated the reduced blood pressure. PhysioCue's therapy devices are efficient, safe, easy to use, and has none of the side effects associated with drugs. We have manufactured our devices and delivered devices to our potential partners and users. We've received positive feedback from many people who have tried and liked our devices. PhysioCue devices can help people and save lives.

Pleiogenix is a clinical-stage bio-pharmaceutical company that will develop safe and effective treatments for liver and other diseases with significant unmet medical needs. The initial diseases that Pleiogenix is targeting are acute alcoholic hepatitis (AAH), COVID-19, and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) / Fibrosis, with additional diseases to follow. AAH is a deadly liver disease resulting in mortality in most patients within 6 months, in the absence of a liver transplant. NASH is a severe form of the chronic liver disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The AAH market is estimated to be $575 million by 2023, while the NASH market is estimated to be $35-40 billion by 2025. COVID-19 is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection; there have been ~34 million cases resulting in over 1,000,000 deaths (globally). There are no approved therapeutics that prevent or treat AAH, NASH, or COVID-19. Pleiogenix has identified a Phase 2A-ready drug candidate, PLG888, an orally available, pan-PPAR agonist (non-thiazolidinedione) that increases circulating adiponectin without eliciting body weight gain or edema. Adiponectin is a hormone possessing significant anti-inflammatory, anti-fibrotic and metabolic clinical benefits. In patients suffering from AAH, NASH, and COVID-19, inflammation is severely increased, and adiponectin is reduced in patients with NASH. Increased adiponectin is linked to decreased systemic inflammation, increased hepatic fat oxidation, decreased hepatic fibrosis, and amelioration of NASH. Thus, PLG888 has the potential to become the first prescription pharmaceutical for AAH, NASH / fibrosis, and/or COVID-19.

Imagine a world without Musculoskeletal Disorders (MSD) like back pain and tennis elbow!

This is the vision of PRECURE! 80 million people in the EU suffer from MSD, leading to €39 billion in employer costs, and more than €80 billion in societal costs. PRECURE provide an integrated solution for insurers and companies to help prevent MSD, reduce costs and create healthier workplaces. Our smart wearables measure employees physical activities throughout the workday. The data helps the employee reduce the muscle load, enables the company to remove the causes, and for the insurer to reduce claims. This is win for the individual, employer, insurer, and society.