BII Start-up Stories: A Summer Summary
After a long summer speckled with great news from the start-ups in our ecosystem, we at BioInnovation Institute are excited to launch our first start-up-focused newsletter. Every month, we will share the best news stories, interviews, and features from our portfolio of early-stage life science start-ups working to improve human and planetary health.
Sounds good? Dive into our summer summary below!
On August 30th, Novo Nordisk announced that it has acquired BII Venture House alumni Embark Biotech. As part of the deal, a new company is spun out, Embark Laboratories, which has entered a three-year R&D collaboration agreement with Novo Nordisk to?discover and develop novel pharmaceuticals to treat obesity and related co-morbidities. Embark's shareholders will receive a EUR 15M upfront cash payment and can receive potential development, regulatory, and commercial milestones of up to EUR 456M.
In June, the current Venture House participant Myopax received the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) rare pediatric disease designation for a potential treatment associated with the rare exstrophy-epispadias complex. Myopax seeks to deliver effective muscle regeneration therapies that restore muscle function.
Venture Lab alumni Algiecel and its partners announced in August that they have secured EUR 2.4M for a power- and microalgae-based decarbonization project under Denmark’s Energy Technology Development and Demonstration Program ( EUDP - Det Energiteknologiske Udviklings- og Demonstrationsprogram ).
Current Venture Lab participant Alba Health announced in June that it has secured $2 million in pre-seed funding in a round led by Voima Ventures, including Octopus Ventures, Noaber, Bust VC, Joyance Partners, and the cofounders of ōURA. The Danish-Swedish start-up is dedicated to providing digital gut health support for children.
Nordic Virtual Pastures has entered a collaboration with DTU - Technical University of Denmark to develop a new cell medium for cultivated meat. The collaboration is financed by the Danish Knowledge and Business cluster program "Innovationskraft," which the Food & Bio Cluster Denmark takes part in along with 12 other clusters. Nordic Virtual Pastures aims to accelerate the cultured meat revolution.
In July, the CEO of HEI Therapeutics , Jesper Kimer, was interviewed for Citeline. In the interview, he discusses his multifarious career and how he ended up in medtech. HEI Therapeutics is developing the world’s first medical-grade home-monitoring solution for hypothyroidism and is currently taking part in BII's Venture House program.
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In August, the CSO of dawn-bio , Alok Javali , was interviewed for Drug Discovery World about the lack of innovation in women's reproductive health and how the start-up plans to fill the gap. Dawn-bio is currently part of BII's Venture Lab program, developing a drug discovery platform using human embryo models for women’s reproductive health.
In the wake of the launch of its first product, start-up Bioomix was featured in Erhverv+ in August. In the feature, CSO Morten ?. Andersen shares where the start-up's journey began, the complex problem he and his colleagues are trying to solve, and what their aspirations are for the future. Bioomix, which develops microbial solutions to problems in the agricultural, food, health, and environmental sectors, is a BII Venture Lab alumni.
Venture House alumni Kariya Pharmaceuticals has been featured in MedWatch in the wake of great fase 2 results for the diabetes treatment lixisenatide as an adjunct therapy for early Parkinson's disease, presented by researchers from Université de Toulouse at the end of August. In the feature, CEO Ian Laquian explains the importance of these results for the company, which develops disease-modifying agents for the treatment of neurogenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s.
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