JBNF-BioMed presents: 

JBNF-BIOMED P h a r m a   S t a r t u p   P i t c h Evening

Sunday, November 22th, 2015

with as participating Pharma Startups:

• Pepticom, presented by Immanuel Lerner, CEO

• Concenter BioPharma / Silkim Ltd, presented by Dror Chevion, CEO

• Hervana, presented by David Hillel Zakai, CBO

as well as a pitch by an established company looking for a strategic partnership with a pharma company involved in brain disorders

• Brainsway Ltd, presented by  Gaby Pell, Physicist, R&D

The Pharma Startups will pitch to a panel composed by the following:

• Nurit Tweezer Zaks, Sanofi-Avantis

• Pennina Safer, Partner, Medica Venture Partners

• Simone Botti, Head Israel Bioincubator Fund, Merck Serono Ventures

JBNF-Biomed is launching a series of startup pitch evenings, to be held every three months. The first one was held July 29th on biomed. The next such event will be in pharma and will be scheduled during the Global Entrepreneurship Week Nov 18-24. The purpose of these events is to give a platform for promising life science start-ups to present themselves to a forum of investors. In addition, it will help other bio-entrepreneurs to learn to better pitch their start-ups and to acquaint themselves with investors. 

JBNF-Biomed is already looking for Biomed startups as well as panelists for its next Biomed startup Pitch Evening scheduled for March.

Sponsored by the JCT – Lev Academic Center, OnTarget Chemistry (Israel) and the Jerusalem Business Networking Forum – Biomed Division. 

RVSP to reserve your place. There is a 20 NIS entrance fee to the event. 

Bring business cards for the great networking!

For questions, contact us at info@jbnf.org

Introductions on the 3 Pharma Startups

Pepticom Ltd was born out of the Hebrew University with a unique drug discovery software platform for peptide drugs. The discovery is based solely on the structure of the target protein, with an ability to design cyclic, linear, helical and D-amino-acid peptides, putting Pepticom at the front line of discovery platforms in the peptide pharmaceutical market. Companies with similar, but not computational, platforms are valued at $0.4B-$1.4B. Pepticom’s ability to compete with front edge companies at a small fraction of the costs makes this a market disruptive technology.

Pepticom works in collaboration with partners in the industry, which experimentally validate the designed molecules. Pepticom manages the primary vaccine adjuvant pipeline while collaborator companies manage the other projects. Pepticom is also engaged in service contracts that generate cash flow and provide end-product royalties. This strategy provides a portfolio of cash flow schemes without losing the focus on our primary products.

Pepticom’s primary product pipeline is a TLR4 activating vaccine adjuvant peptide. Pepticom’s first pipeline molecule underwent initial animal trials in 2015. Peptide adjuvants can both dramatically lower the production costs and toxicity of vaccines, traits that are paramount in the vaccine industry. We expect to have adjuvants ready for sublicense/sale by 2019. Pepticom also has active molecules in Alzheimer’s disease, that have shown promising in vivo results in 2015, in a project managed by a collaborator company

Concenter BioPharma / Silkim Ltd is developing a novel, protected PLATFORM of drugs for proven treatments of multiple indications thatact as: (i) anti-inflammatory agents, (ii) iron chelating agents, and (iii) anti-biotic agents that jointly assist in treating the causes and symptoms of multiple indications. Based on their extensive investigation of pathologies, across multiple animal models, where the metabolism had become dysregulated (i.e. inflamed, iron overloaded and/or infected with bacteria), their PLATFORM has proven successful and effective in treating the following diseases:

• CNS Degenerative Diseases

• Inflammatory skin disorders – psoriasis, dermatitis, wound healing and other skin lesions and pathologies (e.g. acne, allergic reactions, chemical/heat burns)

•  Inflammatory Pulmonary diseases – asthma, COPD, nasal polyposis, allergic rhinitis, cystic fibrosis (CF), and lung fibrosis;

•  Type 2 diabetes and its complications, markedly delaying the conversion of insulin-resistance state to fully-blown diabetes; prevention of retinopathy (AMD) and cardiomyopathy.

 Concenter BioPharma / Silkim Ltd’s initial focus is on a rare disease and unmet clinical needs – leveraging FDA Orphan & 505(b)(2) designations and Expedited Pathway programs.

Hervana Bio, Ltd. is an Israeli-based biopharmaceutical company dedicated to innovating transformational technologies in women’s health. Hervana has developed a non-hormonal, probiotic, female contraceptive platform technology, which offers unique benefits including added protection against STD infection. The HER-102 contraceptive project has received generous support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Hervana is also focused on developing products that address urogenital infection in women. Hervana’s probiotic contraceptive provides for a superior contraceptive from the standpoint of safety,efficacy, and patient compliance, while avoiding the health risks associated with existing, hormonally based contraceptives. 

Brainsway Ltd has developed a tool to safely open the blood-brain-barrier (BBB) using non-invasive neurostimulation. The BBB normally acts to restrict the delivery to the brain of most of the potentially effective oncological drugs. A means to safely and reversibly disrupt the BBB so that drug delivery to the brain is augmented would have potentially huge implications for the treatment of brain tumors.

Brainsway is looking for a pharmaceutical company with which to collaborate and take the technique forward by demonstrating the benefits of combining BBB disruption with administration of a drug agent. Chemotherapeutic agents or other CNS drugs would be appropriate for this effort. The potential of this combined strategy on the CNS drug market would be enormous. Enabling the arsenal of these drugs whose use is currently prevented by the restrictive influence of the BBB would have huge ramifications for the pharmaceutical industry.

Videos on Brainsway: 

• About the Brainsway TMS treatment

• Male Depression treated by Brainsway TMS in NYC

• Female Depression treated by Brainsway TMS

Nurit Tweezer Zaks, Sanofi-Avantis

Dr Nurit Tweezer-Zaks is responsible for prospecting, strategic Initiatives, Scouting and Partnering for Sanofi in Israel

Pennina Safer, Partner, Medica Venture Partners

Dr. Pennina Safer joined Medica in 2002, bringing extensive biotech industry experience and relationships from both the U.S. and Israel. 
Prior to joining Medica, Pennina was at Concord Ventures, where she was part of the Healthcare investment team. Upon moving to Israel in 1998, she took on the role of VP R&D at CBD Technologies, now a wholly owned subsidiary of FuturaGene PLC (LSE:FGN), a world leader in agricultural biotechnology. Pennina brings significant experience from the US biotech industry, including 14 years at Genetics Institute, a Boston – area based biotechnology firm was acquired by American Home Products, now Wyeth, in 1996. While at GI, she held a range of positions including Director, Research Technology Acquisition. Pennina received her PhD in Human Genetics from Yale University, and did a post-doctoral fellowship at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology

Simone Botti, Head Israel Bioincubator Fund, Merck Serono Ventures

Dr Simone Botti as Head Israel Bioincubator Fund for Merck Serono Ventures is responsible for the management of the Israel Bioincubator, a strategic initiative designed to stimulate innovation by bridging the gap between academic research and the biotechnology industry in Israel.He is acting-CEO for Neviah Genomics, an Israel Bioincubator portfolio company developing biomarkers for drug toxicity, acting CEO for Metabomed, an Israel Bioncubator portfolio company in the space of cancer metabolism and  Board Director of ChanBio. He is vice-president for the Israel-Italy Chamber of Commerce,board member for theATI – Israel Advanced Technology Industries. He has a PhD in Chemistry from the Weizmann Institute of Science.