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Winners
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2008/2009 Canada's Top 10™
Life Sciences Competition Winners
"Canada's Top 10™ is a powerful brand that attracted the attention of top-tier US venture capitalists and investment bankers in 2006. At the Canadian Consulate General, we are pleased to host Canada's Top 10™ Life Sciences Investment Forum in January 2007, and we are confident that the relationships forged will lead to results for the Canadian companies."
Marie-Louise Hannan, Consul (Investment) and Trade Commissioner, Consulate General of Canada
“This competition is a unique snapshot of emerging life science companies in Canada. It showcases great technologies and entrepreneurs that are ready for prime-time investing.”
Maha Katabi, Vice-President, Life Sciences, Ventures West (Canada’s Top 10™ Early Stage Jury Member)
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Winners
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Axela is delivering on its mission to provide a simple and effective approach to personalized medicine by exploiting the proprietary dotLab™ System in research markets today to generate tomorrow's diagnostics. This strategy of offering a common technology platform to both markets provides a unique opportunity to capitalize on novel discoveries. The approach has already resulted in applications with the potential to address segments of the large, underserved markets of oncology and cardiology that will be the focus of two funded clinical trials this summer and growing installed customer base. For the first time these leading clinical researchers can use the direct understanding of protein interactions to develop superior quantitative assays on a single platform. dot™ technology has significantly shortened the transition from protein discovery to application. The ability to measure biomolecular complexes in real-time provides for new approaches to disease management.
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DiaMedica Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company that has developed a novel approach to treating type 2 diabetes based on a newly corroborated mechanism. Rather than treating the symptoms, we address what we believe to be the cause of type 2 diabetes with multiple points of intervention. DM-71 and DM-83, our two lead products, have successfully completed phase IIa clinical trials and will undergo further testing. We will be announcing the results of a phase IIa clinical trial in Q4 2008 for DM-99, the Company's third product in clinical development.
DiaMedica has shown that a dysfunctional parasympathetic nerve signal from the brain to the liver may be responsible for 50 to 65% of total glucose uptake by muscle which was attributed to insulin action. By replacing the function of this dysfunctional nerve signal, DiaMedica believes that its therapeutics will work naturally to control an individual's blood sugar after they have consumed a meal.
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iCo Therapeutics Inc. is a Vancouver-based reprofiling company focused on redosing or reformulating drugs with clinical history for new or expanded indications. iCo has exclusive worldwide rights to three products, iCo-007, in Phase I for the treatment of Diabetic Macular Edema, iCo-008, a product with Phase II clinical history to be developed for severe ocular allergies, and iCo-009, an oral reformulation of Amphotericin B for sight and life threatening diseases. iCo-009 also represents a new drug delivery technology with the potential to reprofile other IV administered drugs to the oral route of administration.
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ImmunoVaccine Technologies Inc. (IVT) is a private biotechnology company developing infectious disease and therapeutic cancer vaccines for human health. IVT has a breakthrough VacciMax® and DepoVax™ vaccine delivery and enhancement systems and Immunotope’s antigen discovery platform with a large selection of validated vaccine antigens. The combination of the right antigens and strong novel delivery will position IVT as a key player in development of premium vaccine products. IVT has granted two licenses and an option to Pfizer Animal Health for use of the VacciMax® platform in livestock vaccines. IVT will also license one or more programs to partners in the human health field. IVT is currently seeking an investment of $15 million which will fund the completion of the acquisition of Immunotope and both the ongoing Phase 1 human trial, as well as a Phase 1 human clinical trial which will include the VacciMax® or DepoVax™ delivery system.
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Indel Therapeutics Inc. is a Vancouver-based biotechnology company dedicated to discovering and developing new drugs for difficult to treat infections, with a focus on the growing critical unmet needs of hospital-acquired and antibiotic resistant infections. Invented by Dr. Neil Reiner and his colleagues at the University of British Columbia, the company's drug discovery platform technology is based on a novel and paradigm-breaking approach to find new antibacterial, antifungal and anti-parasitic drugs by going after heretofore shunned targets: essential, critical hub proteins common to pathogen and host. This strategy allows for the highly selective targeting of the pathogen protein and opens up a whole new classes of very attractive antimicrobial targets that should be less likely to have resistance evolve against them. The company has demonstrated in vitro proof of concept in both bacterial and parasitic infectious disease models and is preparing to raise a Series A financing.
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Kane Biotech is dedicated to the research and development of products that prevent and disperse microbial biofilms. The Company is developing products for the prevention and dispersal of biofilms focused on the genetic mechanisms of biofilm formation. The Company has evidence that this technology has potential to significantly improve the ability to prevent and/or destroy biofilms in several medical and industrial applications. Kane is currently developing products to prevent hospital acquired infections, treat chronic wounds and prevent plaque formation.
Biofilms are estimated to be responsible for 80% of all human infections and cost industry, cities and hospitals in excess of $500 billion each year.
Kane Biotech has a growing pipeline of products based on the Company’s ability to screen for factors affecting biofilm formation and has resulted in the development of candidate products based on the demand for safe and effective anti-biofilm compounds.
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PlantForm Corp is a new company focused on providing low cost therapeutic drugs for the improvement of quality of life. Established in early 2008 the company aims to create value for investors of $20-40 million three years after start-up and $150-250 million after seven years. The Company will use proprietary technology licensed from the University of Guelph to manufacture antibody and protein drugs in tobacco plants. The Company’s first product will be a biosimilar version of the breast cancer drug Herceptin. The world market in 2007 for this product was $1.7 billion and is anticipated to plateau at $3 billion in 2014 when PlantForm’s version enters the market. PlantForm, in a strategic alliance with a pharmaceutical partner will capture 10-30% of this market. The company’s second product is a vaccine for the fatal diarrheal disease Cryptosporidiosis. The company will develop and market these, and future innovative drugs, under strategic alliance agreements.
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Profound Medical Inc. is a new medical device spin-out from Sunnybrook Health Science Centre. The company, headquartered in Toronto, Canada, was established in June 2008 to pursue commercial development of a novel MRI-guided, trans-urethral ultrasound treatment for Prostate Cancer.
Profound's singlular purpose is to build on the excellent research work of its scientific co-founders, Drs Chopra & Bronskill, and advance its lead product for the Prostate Cancer market into early phase human clinical trials in Canada and the USA in the next 12- 18 months.
With core technical competencies in the fields of therapeutic Ultrasound and MRI, the company is uniquely placed to take advantage of the long-standing, world-class research at Sunnybrook's Imaging Research group, and blend that with experienced medical device developers.
The company is currently in a phase of rapid expansion, and is adding commercially-experienced medical device and regulatory personnel on a monthly.
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Sanomune is a private biotech start-up focused on neurological and autoimmune diseases. The Company's technology is based on the proprietary repurposing of a safe, oral biological to treat large market indications. Sanomune's lead product, SAN-61, is a potential first-in-class treatment targeting the dual hallmark pathologies of Alzheimer's (AD): amyloid beta plaque deposition and the formation of neurofibrillary tangles. No other known therapy can effectively target both aspects of the disease. Sanomune's pipeline also includes products for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) multiple sclerosis (MS), stroke and diabetes. One patent has issued and six others have been filed. Sanomune is developing a recombinant form of its core biological as well as a proprietary nasal delivery device. With a $1.1 million Series A financing, Sanomune has secured compelling efficacy data, a strong IP position and has submitted, just recently, for regulatory approval to begin Phase II trials for AD and RA.
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Viron Therapeutics Inc. is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company with a leading position in the treatment of inflammatory disorders. Viron's novel drug development approach aims to commercialize potent biologics that modulate key steps in the inflammatory cascade. It is the first company to successfully advance a viral protein therapeutic agent into human clinical testing.
The Company's lead compound, VT-111, is currently wrapping up a Phase 2 study in cardiovascular disease, and is also undergoing late pre-clinical development to targetting late stage rejection in solid organ transplantation. Viron is currently scaling up production of the Company's next-to-clinic compound, VT-346, a potent inhibitor of TNF-a. Viron's proprietary screening platform, PROSPECT™ also enables the identification of new viral immunomodulatory compounds which preferentially target pathways of proven value to the industry.
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