20/20 OptimEyes Technologies is a pre-clinical biotechnology spin-out company from McMaster University located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. We developed a transformative drug delivery platform for ocular diseases typically controlled by eye drops. Using a patented micelle formulation, we can change the dosing paradigm for eye drops from twice daily to once or twice weekly. Proceeds from this Summit will be used for a small batch manufacturing run to complete CMC and IND-enabling validation of the technology in our lead indication, dry eye disease. This technology will revolutionize treatment for patients, improving their comfort, compliance and clinical outcomes.

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Presenter: Frances Lasowski, Founder & CEO

Able Innovations is solving the painful and labour-intensive process of patient transfers by developing innovative robotic technology that enables effortless, contactless, single caregiver, safe and dignified transfers. Their DELTA Platform™, is capable of automated transfers of supine individuals who need to be moved laterally (ex. Bed to stretcher, imaging table) in healthcare facilities. With our front line staff reaching a breaking point, and facilities struggling to balance budgets- the DELTA Platform™ will result in safer working conditions for staff, and more sustainable operations for facilities as they will be able to do more with less.

Presenter: Jayiesh Singh, Chief Executive Officer

Air Microfluidic Systems Inc. (AMS) is a startup working on developing wearable devices powered by our patent-pending air microfluidics technologies. Our current leading product is an air microfluidics-enabled active compression apparel (AMACA) for treating breast cancer-related lymphedema, which has the state-of-the-art performance while being portable with a smartphone-sized wearable control box. AMACA is at Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 5. We are at the pre-clinical stage focusing on the research and development of AMACA. The proceeds will be used for research and development from the current TRL 5 to TRL 7, pre-clinical trials (TRL 8), and commercialization (TRL 9).

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Presenter: Run Ze Gao

AltumView is a Vancouver AI company founded in 2016. It develops a smart sensor for applications such as senior care, security, and telehealth. The sensor monitors the activity of people such as seniors, collect health statistics, and notify caregivers when emergencies are detected, while preserving privacy. It has been in the markets of Canada, Japan, China, and Taiwan for one year. The second-generation sensor will be released in early 2021, which recently won the CES 2021 Innovation Award Honoree. The company has raised several rounds of angel funds, and is seeking new capital to scale up manufacturing, marketing, and R&D.

Presenter: Jie Liang, President and CEO

ARC is a clinical stage company developing the only liquid medical device that forms a barrier film to prevent surgical adhesions throughout the entire abdominopelvic cavity. Our nonclinical data show superior efficacy compared with three of the top marketed products. We are currently completing a volume escalation, safety clinical trial. Proceeds from our Series B financing will be used to start and complete a US Phase 2 efficacy and safety clinical trial in 100 patients undergoing pelvic/gynecological surgery; prosecute and maintain 8 new patent families and 3 previously issued patent families; and to support manufacturing and market access/reimbursement activities.

Presenter: Chris Springate, CEO

Axolotl Biosciences strives to advance the field of medical science through the use of our novel neurobioink. We are developing innovative products that enable the 3D bioprinting of humanized tissue models to advance the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Axolotl is opening the door to new areas of research by offering the (once impossible) ability to print stem cells into 3D structures.

Presenter: Dr. Stephanie Willerth, Co-Founder

BresoTEC has developed a proprietary acoustic and movement-based AI analysis platform that transforms the precision of a sleep laboratory in to a simple, cordless technology for home use. BresoTEC has completed development and will begin clinical trials early in the new year. Use of funds raised are for scale up of marketing, selling and regulatory manufacturing costs for the US market, development of the second version of the BresoDX home sleep test and scaling costs.

Presenter: Peter Bloch, CEO

ChipCare is a pre-revenue biotech company based in Toronto. We are in late stage development of a novel point-of-care in-vitro diagnostic platform for the differential diagnosis of infectious diseases and health monitoring. The platform includes an analyzer and single use cartridges which contain test specific reagents. The platform is intended for use in community clinics, congregate care residences, chain pharmacies, under-serviced communities etc. and provides a test result in ~ 30 minutes. This enables health care workers to provide diagnosis and treatment in a single visit, minimizing the spread of disease and delays in treatment. We expect to go to market with our initial STI assay in mid-2022.

Presenter: Jeffrey Weisberg, Chief Executive Officer and President

Curovate is revolutionizing physiotherapy by making it accessible, affordable and improving patient outcomes and adherence. Physiotherapy following orthopaedic surgery has major barriers to access due to the high cost and low adherence. This results in 80% of people not doing their rehabilitation after surgery. Curovate offers a subscription-based mobile app for rehabilitation following a total knee replacement, total hip replacement and an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) surgery available through the Apple and Google App Stores. We are at the Seed stage seeking an investment of $200,000. This investment would be used for advertising, business to business engagement and software development.

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Presenter: Nirtal Shah, CEO

Denote Therapeutics is developing the allogeneic Double Negative T-cell (DNT) platform for off-the-shelf therapeutics in oncology and certain immune disorders. Denote plans to advance this platform through the development of both unmodified and modified DNT therapies both in-house and in conjunction with partners.

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Presenter: Robert Verhagen, CEO

DNAMx is a cross-border molecular diagnostics start-up company being spun out of University Health Network. Scientific co-founders from Princess Margaret Cancer Research Institute, Daniel De Carvalho (Interim CSO) and Scott Bratman (CEO), have joined forces with serial entrepreneurs, Anne-Renee Hartman (CMO), David Scheer (Board Chair), and Maneesh Jain (Board Member), to commercialized cutting-edge liquid biopsy technology for cancer detection and management.  Building on multiple high-impact publications in Nature and Nature Medicine, DNAMx is now raising a large Series A financing round to achieve ambitious milestones aimed at bringing the technology into the clinic.

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Presenter: Scott Bratman, Founder & CEO

Since the 2021 OBIO Investment Summit, DNAMx has changed its name to Adela.

Elarex is commercializing its proprietary PT120 formulation technology, proven to stabilize vaccines and biotherapeutics so that cold chain distribution is no longer required. We recently secured $500k in pre-seed financing (another $400k pending) and were awarded NSERC I2I Grant. Our technical team is assembled and we have three paid pilots ongoing with top tier vaccine manufacturer. Business Development leader added to team. We are seeking $4,000,000 to aggressively pursue mRNA/LNP opportunity, expand leadership and technical team, enhance IP portfolio, and expand number of partners and projects.

Presenter: Robert DeWitte, Co-Founder and CEO

Feldan Therapeutics is a biotechnology company that introduced the Feldan Shuttle, a peptide-based platform that allows safe and efficient delivery of proteins, peptides and small molecules inside cells. This technology has the potential to help treat many diseases by targeting intracellular pathways. Feldan is focused on bringing its two therapeutic applications (topical product for BCC/Gorlin patients and inhaled CRISPR-based therapy for Cystic Fibrosis) to the clinic. The company is looking to raise its Series B round of financing mid-2021 to finance Phase I/II clinical trial of our first-to-human indication (Gorlin syndrome) as well as the pre-clinical phase of our Cystic Fibrosis indication.

Presenter: Francois-Thomas Michaud, Chief Executive Officer

With a first-of-its-kind, AI-enabled image search engine called Lagotto, Huron Digital Pathology is revolutionizing how pathologists access the vast knowledge contained in the world’s pathology reports, hospital records, and clinical data, to drive efficiency and reduce diagnostic error. We just gained our first high profile customer for Lagotto in the US and are beginning to generate recurring software revenue. We are actively engaging with large hospitals and institutions keen to benefit from our solution. We are raising a Series A round to scale our sales efforts, expand our product portfolio and achieve regulatory approvals.

Presenter: Patrick Myles, Chief Executive Officer

Inspire Biotherapeutics is a new company founded in partnership with The University of Guelph and The Ottawa Hospital Research Institute to develop and commercialize transformative gene therapies for currently incurable mono-genetic lung diseases. We have access to a GMP viral vector manufacturing facility and integrated research and clinical care platform. Our approach is based on recent successes in gene therapy development and commercialization: our proprietary, rationally designed adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsid, can be viewed as a next generation gene therapy and has many advantages over current products. Proceeds will be used to develop our first pipeline product to be tested in clinical trials by 2022.

Presenter: Bernard Thébaud, President

IntelliStem is an early stage biotech company that has created the next generation of cell therapy products to target catastrophic diseases such as cancer and Infectious diseases. Its first product “Super Sentinel CellsTM” is an off-the-shelf product to target cancer that has shown an 80% success rate compared to 20% of incumbents In-vivo, which can target both blood and solid tumors offering scalable and more efficacious solutions, at a fraction of the cost of the current platforms. We hope to use investor funds to advance our assets to market through clinical trials, then out-licensing and co-development.

Presenter: Riam Shammaa, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder

Jenthera Therapeutics is a seed stage therapeutics company introducing a novel protein-based gene editing platform delivering solutions to the major challenges currently facing CRISPR therapeutics: safety, precision corrections and targeted delivery. Our patented technology allows for the rapid development of high efficacy non-viral gene editing complexes achieving unprecedented levels of efficiency in cellular delivery, high frequencies of corrective precision repair and safety from off-target effects. We are looking to raise a 2M$ seed round to finance our EML4-ALK non-small cell lung cancer in vivo validation leading to a Series A in Q4-2021 that will fund IND enabling preclinical studies and PhaseI/II clinical trials.

Presenter: Philip Roche, CEO

JN Nova Pharma Inc’s lead therapeutic molecule, JN2019, is a potent corona viral neutralizing agent, acting via an enhanced ACE2 decoy, which inhibits viral entry and is immunologically conjugated to cause viral clearance. By simultaneously replacing the lost ACE2 function, it potentially will counteract the deleterious effects of acute respiratory disease syndrome (ARDS) and reduce pathogenic innate immune activation and inflammation caused by the virus.

Presenter: John Gillard, CEO

KA Imaging has created color x-ray (Reveal™)which allows for soft tissue and bone separation resulting in better patient outcomes. Reveal™, has received USA FDA 510(k) clearance and Health Canada approval and the company is focusing on commercialisation. KA is raising $25M USD for commercialization infrastructure (sales, service and applications), marketing the hardware-as-a-service revenue model and AI development.

Presenter: Amol Karnick, President & CEO

MedBiome develops precision microbiome therapeutic and nutritional products to improve human health. MedBiome has a novel platform to screen compounds for their effects on living human microbiomes in 96 well plates. We use this technology for: 1) the development of precision microbiome nutritional and therapeutics products targeting specific microbiome metabolites with a focus on pediatric IBD and new programs in gut-brain axis, and Chronic Kidney Disease. 2) partnering with biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies seeking to screen their proprietary drugs, nutritional compounds, natural compounds, and other compounds against panels of human/animal microbiomes.

Presenter: Daniel Figeys, President

Mediphage Bioceuticals, a preclinical-stage biotechnology company, is developing the next-generation non-viral gene delivery platform based on its ministring DNA (msDNA) technology. Mediphage’s proprietary msDNA is a versatile gene delivery platform that has the potential for applications in various therapeutic areas including retina, liver, oncology, and CNS disorders among others. msDNA can be used in applications beyond gene therapy, including DNA vaccines to address infectious diseases, improved rAAV platform production, and gene editing. Mediphage is currently raising $32M CAD in Series A which will support executive and technical team growth, process development and proof of concept studies.

Presenter: Alvaro Amorrortu, CEO & President

Mesentech makes bi-specific small-molecule therapeutics that are selective for both a tissue target and a molecular target. These chemical conjugates liberate the active pharmaceutical only in the targeted tissue thereby eliminating side effects caused by systemic exposure. Mesentech’s lead program is a bone-targeted anabolic that stimulates bone regeneration. It is indicated for severe pediatric osteoporosis caused by brittle bone disease, Duchenne muscular dystrophy and as a consequence of steroid treatment.

Presenter: Jonathan Polak, CEO

My Intelligent Machines (MIMs), based in Montreal, is a leader in artificial intelligence applied to life sciences. We provide Biopharma and Agtech companies with augmented intelligence systems enabling life scientists working in this space to model patients, cells, tissues or farm animals to develop more efficient and personalized treatments and agro-products. We are closing our Series A of 5M$ by Jan 2021. The proceeds will be used for the scaling phase, to consolidate our leadership in Canada, USA & Europe & team growth.

Presenter: Sarah Jenna, CEO

Mobio Interactive is a revenue-generating digital therapeutics company that develops and commercializes clinically validated and objectively quantified software to prevent, measure and treat mental illness. Mobio’s recent progress includes completion of a clinical trial with cancer patients, demonstrating equivalent effect sizes on psychological wellbeing from the DTx Am Mindfulness as compared to group psychotherapy. Mobio is raising Series A capital to support clinical trials, IP protection, payor & partner negotiations, regulatory approval, and DTx sales.

Presenter: Bechara Saab, CEO

Morphocell Technologies is a regenerative medicine company developing an extensive therapeutic platform based on its allogeneic stem cell-derived engineered liver tissues (ELT). Its mission is to transform the treatment of liver disease by the means of cell therapy. With $2.1M in pre-seed funding, we significantly de-risked the technology, collected compelling efficacy/safety data and addressed key scalability hurdles in manufacturing. We are seeking $4.5M to confirm the efficacy and safety of the ELT in large animals. Achieving this key value inflection point would trigger a larger series A investment from already engaged parties, thus enabling pre-clinical development up to CTA/IND application.

Presenter: Massimiliano Paganelli, Co-founder and CEO

MY01 Inc. is on a mission to empower healthcare professionals with the ability to pre-empt severe medical conditions thereby improving patient outcomes. We are commercial and saving limbs with our MY01 Continuous Intracompartment Pressure Monitor.

Presenter: Charles Allan, CEO

Nanovista is developing novel imaging agents for surgical oncology with the lead product, CF800, enabling cancer surgeons to visualize tumors in real time during surgery. Even the most skilled surgeons capture as little as 30-60% of the tumor margins in challenging disease areas. Nanovista's CF800 liposomal imaging agent accumulates specifically at tumor margins and is ideally suited to visualize all solid tumors. CF800 works with existing operating room near-infrared imaging equipment and illuminates tumors both at the surgery planning phase and inside the operating room, with the potential to significantly improve cancer surgery outcomes. The company is raising capital for Phase I development of CF800 in lung cancer and head and neck cancer.

Presenter: Anton Neschadim, Chief Executive

Neurovine is a Series A stage prescription digital health platform that uses AI and connected wearables to improve brain recovery after a concussion. The proceeds will allow Neurovine to complete the second clinical trial and the regulatory process and to launch the product with Canadian physiotherapists and sports medicine physicians who have established billing codes.

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Presenter: Ashleigh Kennedy, Founder

Nightingale.ai is in development of a computer vision-based mobile application for end-to-end automation of physiotherapy management of patients post total hip and knee replacement. This self-assessment and treatment planning tool enable remote personalized care in a cost-effective manner. The company is currently in pre-seed stage. The proceeds from seed financing will be used on creating the prototype of the first-of-its-kind computer vision-based functional tests and treatment planning, conducting pre-clinical trials, and covering essential developer compensation.

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Presenter: Sameer Chunara, Co-founder and CEO

Notogen is a preclinical-stage biotechnology company developing a novel regenerative biologic therapy for degenerative disc disease (i.e. chronic back and neck pain caused by degenerating spinal discs), a disease indication with no disease modifying treatments that is the largest unmet need in orthopedics and one of the largest unmet needs in healthcare. Notogen has had a successful pre-IND meeting with the FDA, has published impressive large animal in vivo data, has raised funding to complete its cGMP manufacturing and its IND-filing, and is now looking to raise a Series A round to finance its Phase I/IIa clinical trial and beyond.

Presenter: Gary Margolis, CEO

NURO is an award-winning start-up from Waterloo, Ontario, which has developed NUOS, the Neural Operating System. With NUOS, incapacitated individuals in various states of Akinetic Mutism (due to Stroke, Trauma or Neurodegeneration) can now communicate and compute using brain signals. NUOS works instantly and without any surgery. NUOS is Health Canada cleared, US IRB cleared and US FDA cleared as the only non-invasive treatment of its kind. NUOS has been released in 3 editions after 6 years of R&D, 5 accelerators in Canada and Silicon Valley and over $1M of funding by SOSV / INDIE BIO, top medical doctors, The Ontario Centres of Excellence and other parties including Canada's FedDev, NRC-IRAP, MaRs, Mitacs, MIT, Google and more.

Presenter: Francois Gand, Founder and CEO

Oncoustics is creating and deploying advanced AI solutions for low cost, non-invasive surveillance, diagnostics, and treatment monitoring of diseases with high unmet clinical need. Oncoustics applies AI to raw ultrasound signals from readily available handheld ultrasound devices to rapidly differentiate healthy versus diseased tissues. Oncoustics is a clinical-stage company with partnerships with several ultrasound OEMs, and FDA pre-sub and trials this year. Oncoustics is raising Series A capital to bring the first product to market (FDA clearance), and continue growing the data library for new indications, as well as grow the team.

Presenter: Ahmed El Kaffas, Founder

Orion Biotechnology is a clinical stage biotechnology company developing GPCR-targeted therapeutics for the treatment of cancer and other serious diseases. This novel scientific approach is enabled by Orion’s proprietary high-throughput drug discovery platform. Our disruptive analog-based technologies position OB to become a premier GPCR-focused company to deliver next generation therapeutics not only for Orion’s pipeline, but also in collaboration with other biopharmaceutical companies. We plan to advance our lead candidate into Phase 1b/2a trial in Oncology and complete lead optimization of 2 additional drug candidates.

Presenter: Antaole Klepatskyi, COO

Ovensa Inc. is a preclinical stage biotech company advancing its siRNA lead candidate silencing galectin-1 (Gal-1) overexpression in the tumor microenvironment to improve therapeutic outcomes of immuno-oncology checkpoint inhibitors as a combination therapy in head & neck cancer. Ovensa currently works with pharmaceutical companies to formulate their drugs into nanoparticles using Ovensa's TRIOZAN™ drug delivery platform. Most of the collaborations are related to siRNA or mRNA therapeutics where Ovensa offers a non-lipidic approach for intranasal, IV or vaccines delivery.

Presenter: Stephane Gagne, President & CEO

PanTHERA CryoSolutions Inc. (PanTHERA) is a Canadian Corporation that designs and manufacturers pre-formulated cryopreservation solutions for cells and tissues used in the clinical and research markets. The majority of cellular damage during cryopreservation occurs as a result of the uncontrolled growth of ice during storage at sub-zero temperatures followed by subsequent warming and thawing. The PanTHERA technology has the unique ability to control ice crystal size and growth throughout the cryopreservation process and thus maintain superior recoveries and cellular function after extended frozen storage.

Presenters: Robert Ben, Co-founder and CSO; Jason Acker Co-founder and CEO

Perceiv is an AI-based digital biomarkers company specializing in the field of precision medicine. We are dedicated to reducing risks for patients and making clinical trials more cost-effective through advanced machine learning algorithms. We have secured $360K (USD) in non-dilutive public funding and we are seeking $2M (USD) in dilutive investment. These proceeds would go into making key hires (scientists, developers, and business development staff), operationalizing and commercializing our Alzheimer’s solution (product launch), supporting partnerships for data access with pharmaceutical companies and hospitals, and further improving our platform to accelerate new product development, and support the development new products (cardiovascular diseases).

Presenter: Christian Dansereau, CEO

PlantForm is a biotechnology company headquartered in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, with a proven technology used to develop and manufacture high value proteins and antibodies as diagnostics, drugs, and vaccines. PlantForm’s patented vivoXPRESS® technology uses genetically modified tobacco plants to manufacture very low-cost products using fully contained vertical growth environments. The company is revenue generating from contracts including production of components for COVID-19 diagnostic kits. The proceeds of the financing will advance company's lead medical countermeasure drug through IND enabling and Phase 1 Clinical Studies to enter the market in 2-3 years, no Phase 2 or 3 Clinical trials being required.

Presenter: Don Stewart, CEO

PROTXX enhances care, outcomes, and healthcare economics for patients living with neuro-disruptive (e.g. concussion, stroke) and neuro-degenerative (e.g. multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease) medical conditions. Our precision health platform integrates innovations in non-invasive wearable physiological sensors and machine learning classification of neurosensory and neuromotor impairments, replacing complex clinical equipment and time-consuming tests with easier-to-use, lower-cost, in-clinic and remote precision patient assessments. At the core of the PROTXX platform is the company’s “phybrata” sensor, a tiny, non-invasive device worn behind the ear that is able to classify, quantify, and monitor impairments to the major neurophysiological systems in the body.

Presenter: John Ralston, CEO and Founder

Providence Therapeutics has successfully raised over $10.7 million over the last year to support its personalized cancer vaccine program, using it mRNA vaccine technology. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have redeployed our GMP production capacity to develop and manufacture a made-in-Canada COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. We have clinical trials planned for early 2021 that are supported by the NRC. Scale-up of our vaccine is currently underway and is supported by $3.5 million in contributions from the NGen supercluster. The proceeds from our series B will support continued Phase 2 clinical trials and scaled production to support commercialization.

Presenter: Brad Sorenson, CEO

Realize Medical is the creator of Elucis, the only all-in-one 3D medical modelling solution offering true 3D precision input, visualization and multi-user collaboration, entirely in VR. After getting into early stage revues in the research use stage, RM is raising $1.5m in seed funding to expand sales and engineering teams, achieve FDA clearance and provide 18+ months runway.

Presenter: Taylor Fantin, CFO

Replica Analytics develops data synthesis technology. This allows data simulators to be created – these are models that can be used to generate new data while retaining the statistical properties and patterns in the original data. A key use case of data simulators is to provide rapid access to clinical data within the enterprise, and to augment small studies (i.e., use 50% of the target recruitment to simulate the remaining 50%). Data augmentation can change the economics of clinical studies by allowing the same conclusions to be drawn from smaller datasets.

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Presenter: Khaled El Emam, Co-founder and Director

Ripple Therapeutics is a clinical stage company focused on improving ophthalmic therapeutics with controllable, sustained drug delivery. Ripple’s Epidel® platform is based on a discovery that drugs can be engineered into controlled release pharmaceuticals without polymers or excipients. These proprietary prodrugs undergo surface erosion to give zero order release kinetics and are highly engineerable to tailor drug dose and duration to the specific indication. Ripple’s lead program – IBE-814 IVT – is an intravitreal implant targeting diabetic macular edema (DME) and retinal vein occlusion (RVO). A Phase II trial has been initiated in Australia with the first patient treatment expected early 2021.

Presenter: Wendy Naimark, VP, Research & Development

Rna Diagnostics is a clinical-stage company developing it’s first product, a proprietary diagnostic test for breast cancer therapy response measurement. Our test will indicate to doctors, early in treatment, which patients will receive a survival benefit and which patients will not. This test will help address the $60 billion that is spent each year on cancer drugs that are not working for a majority of patients.

Presenter: Jeremy Bridge-Cook, President & CEO

Specific Biologics is a discovery stage company developing platform gene editing technologies as therapeutics to treat or cure disease through precision gene editing. Our gene editor Dualase is designed to overcome two problems with current gene editor – random DNA insertions / deletions and low frequency repair. Unlike other technologies, Dualase cuts DNA in two spots and leaves non-compatible DNA ends. These ends create precise deletions to disrupt DNA or increase rates of repair to correct DNA. We are raising $2.7 million CAD to advance our programs in cystic fibrosis and oncology in preclinical animal models and further develop the platform.

Presenter: Brent Stead, CEO

Spiderwort is an innovative pre-clinical stage tissue engineering company specializing in the development of cellulose-based biomaterials with a lead indication in Spinal Cord Injury repair with the ultimate goal to improve human quality of life. The FDA has granted a Breakthrough Device Designation for Spiderwort’s spinal cord technology. Spiderwort is raising Series A capital to support clinical pilot studies.

Presenter: Charles Cuerrier, CEO

Steadiwear develops battery-free gloves that stabilizes hand tremors in Parkinson’s disease & Essential tremor using technology was inspired by leading-edge earthquake dampers used in buildings. We are raising seed funding for clinical trial & health economics studies, manufacturing, and sales and marketing.

Presenter: Mark Elias, CEO

SDRi is a Canadian spinal medical device company pioneering a revolutionary artificial disc replacement implant technology - the only artificial disc implant that can both preserve motion and restore alignment to the spine. With a CE mark, Synergy has begun early commercialization efforts in last couple years in Europe and Australia. We have completed more than 1000 implants of the Synergy Disc with no device related adverse events. Synergy is now raising $15M USD to complete its FDA IDE clinical trial in pursuit of USA market approval, the largest market in the world for cervical artificial disc implants.

Presenter: Josh Butters, CEO

Synmedix is a newly-founded biotechnology company created to commercialize a novel platform that dramatically enhances the effectiveness of antibiotics to address unmet medical need posed by the global health crisis in antibiotic resistance. Synmedix was founded on McMaster University technology, showing that bicarbonate dramatically improves the efficacy and spectrum of several antibiotics enabling the treatment of multidrug-resistant infections. Synmedix is seeking seed funding for preclinical studies leading to an Investigational New Drug (IND) for its lead product BCX-4, azithromycin plus bicarbonate, for a first-in-class treatment of diabetic foot ulcer infections. Clinical development will leverage the FDA’s accelerated 505(b)(2) pathway.

Presenter: Eric Brown, CEO

TATUM Bioscience is a synthetic biology startup developing a new class of drug called synthetic live biotherapeutics (synLBT). synLBT are probiotics engineered to execute advanced therapeutic tasks. This technology disrupts the conventional drug development process by allowing us to build drugs instead of discovering them. Using its unique modular platform, TATUM design synLBTs to tackle diseases for which conventional drugs have now reached their limits and focuses its efforts on antibiotic resistance and oncology. The company will open a seed round in Q4 of 2021 to advance its programs, expand its IP portfolio, and conduct INTERACT and pre-IND meetings.

Presenter: Jean-François Millau, CEO

TCRyption Inc., a novel TCR-T cell therapy company, with the goal of expanding the availability of T-cell receptor based cellular therapeutic (TCR-T) options as effective and safe therapies across multiple cancers with a high unmet need. The company’s highly diverse and growing TCR bank utilizes the proprietary TCRypt platform, originally created by Dr. Naoto Hirano at University Health Network’s (UHN) Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. With unparalleled sensitivity in its ability to mine physiologically relevant TCR’s, this platform enables the rapid discovery of an expansive bank of TCRs that can be used to better address patient needs. TCRyption was established with an initial $10 million in seed financing from TIO Bioventures.

Presenter: Michael Tusche, Co-CEO

Treadwell Therapeutics is a clinical stage Biotechnology company, driven by novel science, and focused on the development of First in class, best in class or only in class small molecule candidates for unmet needs in oncology. Co-Founded in July of 2019 by Drs. Tak Mak and Mark Bray, Treadwell’s three clinical stage assets have been in development for over a decade by the Therapeutics group at the Campbell Family Institute at UHN. With operations in New York, Boston, San Francisco, Hong Kong, and a substantial footprint in Toronto, Treadwell has a global view and strong local roots. The company was established with a $25M investment from TIO Bioventures.

Presenter: Michael Tusche, Co-CEO

At Virica, we believe that viral medicines hold the key to unlocking the future of human healthcare. However, there are unmet needs in the field of viral therapeutics that limit their development and scalability. Virica fills this void through our proprietary viral sensitizer or VSE technology, in order to realize the promise of viral medicines to extend the horizons of human healthcare. We deploy and monetize our versatile VSE small molecules by working with vaccine and gene therapy manufacturers to reduce their cost of goods, and by developing a pipeline of enhanced viral therapeutics for cancer and other diseases.

Presenter: Jean-Simon Diallo, Scientific Founder/CEO

VitalTracer is a start-up whose focus is on healthcare in the domain of personalized medicine. We aim to create a platform for those who need to improve or manage health with a convenient and non-invasive solution. VitalTracer has raised about 1 million in non-dilutive financing and is currently boot-strapping. We will open our seed round in summer 2021 which will cover our expenses of Research and Development, Regulatory clearance for Health Canada and FDA, manufacturing and clinical validation.

Presenter: Azadeh Dastmalchi, CEO

Zucara Therapeutics Inc. is developing ZT-01, a first-in-class, once-daily therapeutic to prevent insulin-induced hypoglycemia in patients using insulin therapy. ZT-01 is designed to inhibit somatostatin, a pancreatic hormone that impairs the glucagon response to hypoglycemia in people with insulin dependent diabetes. ZT-01 restores glucagon secretion to prevent hypoglycemia, which could dramatically change diabetes disease management and improve both patient health and quality of life. Zucara has recently raised US$21M in a Series A financing that provides capital to conduct Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials. Phase 1 trials are underway with results expected in 2021. For more information, visit www.zucara.ca.

Presenter: Michael Midmer, CEO