2022 Pitchers

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Start-up Slams

The Award for the most innovative start-up goes to:
Karla Therapeutics

Karla Therapeutics, represented by Simon Loiodice, CEO, received the “Most Innovative Start-up” award.

“Attending the BioFIT meeting was a great opportunity to connect with and gain attention from leading investors as well as potential strategic partners. We’re confident that it will help us maximizing the traction around our project.“

About the project:

Karla Therapeutics is a drug development company aiming to revolutionize the treatment of mental disorders harnessing the immune system. Mental health corresponds to a major unmet medical need, which is further worsen by the COVID crisis, and a growing problem for the healthcare systems in the world. Current treatment options are decades old, and development of new treatments is hindered by symptom-based definition of psychiatric illnesses. Karla develops drug candidates targeting the immune system rather than the brain directly. The neuro-immune axis is increasingly viewed as critical in brain disorders by the scientific community and Karla’s immuno-centric approach to psychiatry opens the door to potential applications in multiple mental disorders. Karla has data supporting proof-of-concept of its drug candidates as well as implementation of a precision medicine strategy. The young biotech was founded in 2022 and is currently looking to raise a seed round.

The Merck Award for the most innovative project goes to:
Odimma Therapeutics

Odimma Therapeutics, represented by Jessica Matta, Co-Founder & CEO, received the “Most Innovative Project” award from Merck.

“We are very proud to receive this award. It recognises the great work performed by the odimma therapeutics team and the potential of its innovative personalised immunotherapy platform in oncology. This prize distinguishes Odimma Therapeutics maturity and strengthens our confidence to start clinical trials in 2023.“

About the project:

Odimma Therapeutics (Strasbourg – France) is a European biotech company with a unique approach in active personalized cancer immunotherapy. By harnessing the ability of the patient’s own immune system to specifically recognize specific markers displayed by the tumor, also called neoantigens, Odimma Therapeutics has designed a potent next-generation precision immunotherapy platform able to induce a powerful cellular immune response against specific tumors markers as well as a strong anti-tumoral effect in several aggressive précoloniale tumor models. By design the personalized product can be produced in a short period of time with a favourable economic profile, with no limits in the number of neoantigens to be targeted thus maximise patient benefit.

Discover below the start-up projects that presented during BioFIT 2022:

Tuesday, November 29^th | 9.30 – 10.30 am CET

DIAGNOSTIC

LIFESPIN GMBH www.lifespin.health
Personalised health | Precision medicine | Digital metabolic signature

PARAMEDIR www.paramedir.nl
Continuos monitoring | Intensive care | Kidney disease (AKI)

PROSTPERIA www.prostperia.com
Personalised medicine | Cancer screening | Artificial intelligence

SIBIUS www.sibius.eu
Cognitive disorders | Artificial intelligence | Detection

WAINVAM-E wainvam-e.com
Detection | Sensitivity | Nanodiamonds

Tuesday, November 29^th | 3.30 – 4.30 pm CET

INFLAMMATION

MEXBRAIN www.mexbrain.com
Medical device | Metals | Dialysis

SPARTHA MEDICAL www.sparthamedical.eu
Antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and antiviral coatings | Biopolymers | Supramolecular assembly

VAPTOL (APTEEUS) www.apteeus.fr
Anti-inflammatory drug | Pneumonia | Inhalation

DRUG DEVELOPMENT

MARACELLS www.maracells.com
Cell culturing | Glucose | Online monitoring

VENTIO www.ventio.net
Biomedical imaging | Quantitative susceptibility mapping | Brain biomarker

LAB COMPLIANCE

ARXUM www.arxum.com
Blockchain | Innovation | Compliance

Wednesday, November 30^th | 11.00 am – 12.15 pm CET

CELL & GENE THERAPY

EG 427 www.eg427.com
Peripheral nervous system | Redosable | Large Payload

CORE BIOGENESIS www.corebiogenesis.com
Bioproduction | Proteins| Cell Therapy

DE NOVO CELL LTD www.denovocell.com
Stemcell therapy | Personalised medicine | Biotechnology

THERAPEUTICS

APMONIA THERAPEUTICS www.apmonia-therapeutics.com
Tumor microenvironment | Peptide | Immunotherapy

KARLA THERAPEUTICS www.karla-tx.com

Precision medicine | Mental health | Immunology

ODIMMA THERAPEUTICS www.odimma-therapeutics.com
Personalised immunotherapy platform | DNA based technology | Artificial Intelligence

Wednesday, November 30^th | 2.00 – 3.15 pm CET

DRUG DELIVERY

ELASTRIN THERAPEUTICS INC www.elastrin.com
Cardiovascular | Regenerative Medicine | Elastin repair

ALBUPAD
Protein-based materials | Drug delivery | Green technology

DYNABIND GMBH www.dynabind.com
Drug discovery | Small molecules | DNA-Encoded Library

ONCOLOGY

BIPER THERAPEUTICS www.biper-tx.com
Cancer | First-In-Class | ER Stress

CASINVENT PHARMA www.casinvent.com
Oncology | Leukemia | Casein kinase 1

REAL RESEARCH www.real-research.com
3D cell culture | Research models | Cancer

THERATRAME www.theratrame.com
Oncology | tRNA | Drug discovery

Collaborative and licensing opportunity presentations

The Award for the most promising technology goes to:
Actome

Actome GmbH, represented by Peter Koltay, Co-founder & CEO, received the “Most Promising Technology” award.

“BioFIT 2022 was a great success for Actome! We had a lot of inspiring meetings, made contacts to important partners and presented our PICO products to potential customers. Finally, we did also win the award for the most promising technology which is a great honour for us! We are grateful to the BioFIT team for this award and for the well organised event.”

About the project:

Actome GmbH is a life-science start-up form Freiburg, Germany adopting digital PCR (dPCR) technology and Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) for the ultra-sensitive measurement of proteins and protein interactions. First products based on the Protein Interaction Coupling (PICO) technology for use on dPCR instruments of QIAGEN have been released already in May this year. Now, the Actome team embarks on developing products for readout by NGS to enable the simultaneous analysis of a large number of proteins and protein interactions in a single assay with hitherto unseen performance.r

Discover below the technologies that presented during BioFIT 2022

Tuesday, November 29^th | 2.00 – 3.00 pm CET

LAB & RESEARCH TOOL

ACTOME www.actome.de
Proteomics | Protein-protein interactions (PPI) | Post translational modifications (PTM)

ELEMENTA LABS B.V. www.elementalabs.com
AI | Voice-technology | Pharma & Life Sciences

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR TERRESTRIAL MICROBIOLOGY www.mpi-marburg.mpg.de
Lifespan | Highthroughput | Yeast

CARDIOVASCULAR

IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON – MAP4K4 INHIBITORS
Cardiac injury | Small molecule inhibitor | MAP4K4

MONITORING

INSPEK
Process analytical technologies | Real-time, in-situ monitoring | Single-use technologies

Wednesday, November 30^th | 9.00 – 10.00 am CET

METABOLIC

UNIVERSITY OF PISA – METABOLISM www.unipi.it

GLP-1 secretion | Diabetes | Obesity

CNS

SATT CONECTUS – DELIS-ALZ www.conectus.fr
Sigma1 | Neurodegeneration | Cognitive impairments

DIAGNOSTIC

IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON – NANOSCALE TWEEZERS
Single-cell manipulation | Biomolecule extraction | Non-destructive trapping

KU LEUVEN
Non-invasive | Functional biomarker | Immuno-oncology

BIOPRESERVATION

IFREMER wwz.ifremer
Biopreservation | Seafood | Beneficial bacteria

Animal Health Presentations

The Award for the most Innovative Animal Health Project goes to:
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Pharmacy

Urban Košak, Researcher, is the winner of this year’s edition of the Animal Health Presentations, with its project from the University of Ljubjlana, Faculty of Pharmacy.

“BioFIT was an awesome experience because I got the opportunity to present the results of my teams’ research work to representatives of animal and human health pharmaceutical companies. They gave me a lot of invaluable advice that will help me and my team reach our desired professional goals.”

About the project:

At the Department of Pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Pharmacy we have developed a new selective butyrylcholinesterase inhibitor that increases brain levels of acetylcholine, the neurotransmitter in the brain responsible for memory and learning. Our compound improves memory, cognitive functions and learning abilities of mice with induced symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. It is not active only in laboratory animals, but in actual patients. Our inhibitor improves cognitive functions and quality of life of dogs suffering from canine cognitive dysfunction. Most importantly, our compound does not produce the cholinergic adverse effects typical for other drugs that increase brain levels of acetylcholine. We have patented our inhibitor and are looking to license it to an animal or human health pharmaceutical company.

Discover below the animal health projects that presented during BioFIT 2022

Tuesday, November 29^th | 5.00 – 6.15 pm CET

ANIMAL HEALTH

IFREMER wwz.ifremer
Oyster | Herpesvirus | Antiviral stimulation

DEEPTOPE www.deeptope.com
Antibody & protein | Caniziation & Felinisation | Optimisation

ANIMOSCOPE www.animoscope.com
Telehealth | Symptom checker | Artificial intelligence

WEYTS EQUINE VETTING-ALSVID
Laminitis | Horses | Circulation

UNIVERSITY OF LJUBLJANA FACULTY OF PHARMACY
Canine cognitive dysfunction | Butyrylcholinesterase inhibitor | New drug

Alexandre Breda, Biotech Start-up Manager, Eurasanté
Gary Breit, CEO, Breit Ideas LLP
Vincent Brichard, Venture Partner, EQT Life Sciences
Zuzanna Brzosko, Senior Director, Corporate Strategy & External Innovation, Eli Lilly and Company
Ivan Burkov, Principal, Inkef
Florence Dal Degan, Senior Director, External Innovation, Rare Diseases and Neuroscience, Ipsen
Isabelle Dupin-Roger, Director, R&D External Innovation I Neuroscience and Immuno-inflammation, Servier
Dorothée Gueras Tricart, Head of Biotech division, Eurasanté
Monique Guis, External Innovation Immunology Director, Sanofi
Frank Hensel, Principal, High-Tech Gründerfonds
Dmitrij Hristodorov, Partner, Forbion
Lydia Kalafateli, Venture Developer, NLC Health
Alexandre Laly, Customer Application Consultant – Emerging Biotech, Merck
Esther Lange, Industry Liaison Manager, Ascenion
Marie-Ange N’Zoutani, Head of Acceleration office Sanofi Partnering, Sanofi
Richard Reschen, Associate Director, BD&L Europe, MSD
Olaf Ritzeler, BD&L, Director, Rare Diseases External Innovation / GLOBAL, Sanofi
Corinne Szilagyi, Senior Partner, Biotech Développement Conseils & Member of the Business Development Committee, France Biotech
Kristin Thompson, VP, Chief Business Officer, eureKARE
Joachim Vogt, Director, Search and Evaluation, Western Europe, AbbVie
Ulrich Zugel, Senior Director Emerging Science & Innovation Lead – Inflammation & Immunology Europe, Pfizer
Jean-Christophe Audonnet
Jean-Louis Hunault, President, SIMV
Theo Kanellos, Director Business Development and comercial Alliances, Zoetis
Jean-Pascal Marc, Corporate Product Innovation Director, Virbac
Edouard Timsit, Senior Innovation Scientist, Ceva Santé Animale