Canada's Top 10 Life Science Companies Competition
2005/2006 Finalists
 
“The submissions this year demonstrate once again the rich depth of Canada’s life sciences entrepreneurship” indicated Tim McCunn, Partner, Borden Ladner Gervais (BLG). “BLG”, a founding sponsor of the Canada’s Top 10 Competition, “is pleased to continue our support of this important sector program catalyzing commercialization opportunities for these growing companies”.
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Early Stage Companies
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Axela Biosensors Inc. has successfully transformed the company from a “University Start-up using diffraction based technology” to “The Diffractive Optics Technology Company” targeting life science and diagnostic applications. This transition was facilitated through the formation of a management team with proven commercialization expertise in life science and diagnostics companies in Canada and the US. This team has successfully transferred the technology from the bench at the University of Toronto to working beta level instruments in the field in less than 2.5 years. These systems have been recognized for their commercial value, validated by both the pharmaceutical and diagnostic industry. The strength of this team is further evidenced through significant transfer agreements with four publicly traded diagnostics companies, and the exclusive license of a complementary patent estate from a US Fortune 500 Corporation (~150 patents and applications). Axela has remained well funded by some of Canada’s most reputable venture capital firms.
“Recognition as a finalist causes us to pause and reflect, for a moment, on the progress we have made as a company. Moving from a Diffractive Optics Technology (DOT) based at the University of Toronto, to commercial and diagnostic beta sites, and agreements with Fortune 500 companies in less than 3 years is amazing,” stated Rocky Ganske, President & CEO, Axela Biosensors Inc. “We stand proud as a team, to be one of Canada’s Top 10 Life Science Companies for 2005/2006.”
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iCo Therapeutics is committed to developing or modifying existing drugs for a range of conditions within ‘isolated biological environments’, in particular the eye, but which could include the spinal cord or joints. Focusing on these systems allows a drug to reach commercialization faster and more efficiently since non-systemic distribution has the potential for fewer risks and safety issues.
By focusing efforts on development instead of research, iCo’s business model aims to acquire the rights to drugs that are either off-patent, currently approved or near commercialization and develop them by redosing or reformulating them for new uses in isolated biological environments. Subsequent development by iCo of these therapeutics may include employing drug delivery technologies—such as sustained release, biodegradable matrices and viral vectors—in order to enable local administration and extend patent coverage.
iCo is currently focused on utilizing its expertise in ophthalmology to build an ocular franchise, which provides further efficiencies to the development and commercialization process including:
- Much smaller amounts of drugs can often be used for local administration into the eye, which may result in lower manufacturing and production costs.
- Many unmet medical conditions in the eye still exist that could be treated with local administration of a drug.
“iCo Therapeutics Inc., formed in 2005 to in-license existing drugs for new uses in the eye and other ‘isolated biological environments’, is honored to be acknowledged by its peers in the Canadian biotechnology and venture capital community,” stated Andrew J. Rae, President & CEO, iCo Therapeutics Inc. “Canada is second only to the US in the formation and growth of viable biotechnology companies worldwide. The underlying strengths of our national biotechnology community will undoubtedly be highlighted at BioNorth by participants in this year’s Canada’s Top Ten Life Sciences Company Competition.”
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Innodia Inc. is a private biotechnology company that develops and brings to the market novel drugs for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and underlying diseases, and delivers value to its shareholders.
Type 2 diabetes is reaching epidemic levels with an estimated 190 million individuals affected worldwide. With skyrocketing obesity rates and an aging population, this epidemic will continue to grow rapidly and become a major burden on global healthcare resources.
In less than three years, Innodia’s pipeline has grown to include four unique orally-administered compounds to treat type 2 diabetes or underlying diseases. These compounds have distinct and complementary mechanisms of action related to stimulation of insulin secretion, lowering of blood glucose, preservation of pancreatic function and increase metabolic energy expenditure.
ID 1101 is Innodia's lead anti-obesity drug candidate, having completed Phase I trials and start Phase II trials in 2006. ID 1135, an antidiabetic with dual activity, is expected to enter clinical trials in the second half of 2006. In addition, two other antidiabetic compounds are in earlier stages of development.
“This award recognizes our effort in building a top tier biotech company and the hard work of our employees. We are very proud of our achievements in developing first-in-class treatments for type 2 diabetes, a disease afflicting two million Canadians. Innodia is well on its way in becoming a global leader in the understanding and treatment of this silent killer,” says Claude Vezeau, President and CEO, Innodia Inc.
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Trillium Therapeutics Inc. (TTI) is a private research and development (R&D) company with a strong immunology focus. The Company develops innovative therapies that restore balance to the immune system in conditions associated with aberrant and harmful immune responses, such autoimmune and inflammatory disorders, graft rejection, cancer and chronic viral diseases. TTI identifies early-stage therapeutic candidates with promising preclinical profiles and advances these towards clinical testing. Its overall objective is to build a company with a robust R&D pipeline comprised of high-quality product opportunities. The Company anticipates that this strategy will lead to its acquisition by a larger company.
TTI currently has five product opportunities originating from its two core immunology platforms: two are targeting the CD200 immunoregulatory pathway and three are aimed at blocking the activating receptor Fc?RIIa. The company has a broad network of academic collaborators and a series of corporate relationships, including ones with Genentech, AstraZeneca and ZymoGenetics.
“We are delighted that a panel of such experienced investors has recognized Trillium’s achievements and future promise. This certainly bodes well for our next round of financing. It is particularly encouraging that the selection committee endorsed our strategy of forging partnerships to build a broad and innovative product pipeline,” said Dr. Niclas Stiernholm, Chief Executive Officer, Trillium Therapeutics Inc. |
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VBI believes that in creating the next generation of vaccines we must learn from, rather than ignore, the lessons of nature. Viruses including Influenza, Avian Flu, HIV, and Dengue all have the ability to mutate to avoid immunity directed against them. This ability has thwarted vaccine efforts over the past two decades.
Using bioinformatics, VBI analyzes thousands of viral sequences isolated from infected individuals worldwide to let nature indicate regions of the virus that are most vulnerable to immune-based therapies. Using its proprietary Variosite technology, VBI synthesizes vaccines that represent the diversity of viral sequences in these variable regions, an approach that differs from all past and current vaccine strategies.
Unlike competing vaccine strategies, VBI’s vaccines evoke the full power of the immune system, mimicking the natural response to infection. Science rooted in lessons learned from nature, coupled with enabling bioinformatics technologies, will soon allow VBI to revolutionize humanity’s fight against infectious disease.
“During the past year VBI has made significant progress towards a solution for the potential influenza pandemic. We are very pleased to be recognized by distinguished investors and industry experts with our second selection as one of Canada’s Top 10,” said Dr. Francisco Diaz-Mitoma, Chief Executive Officer, Variation Biotechnologies Inc.
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Emerging and Late Stage Companies
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Allon Therapeutics Inc. (TSX:NPC) is a Canadian biotechnology company developing drugs that protect against neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, traumatic brain injury, stroke, multiple sclerosis and neuropathy. Allon’s drug discovery platform has resulted in the development of a unique class of peptide compounds that has demonstrated broad efficacy in numerous pre-clinical models of neurodegenerative diseases.
Currently, the company has two clinical drug development programs: AL-108, which focuses on Alzheimer’s disease (intranasal formulation), and AL-208, directed at mild cognitive impairment associated with cardiac artery bypass surgery (intravenous formulation).
The company’s compounds have been validated in more than 60 peer-reviewed journals.
Allon has made significant progress in a short period of time:
- In 12 months Allon has gone from pre-clinical to having two Phase I trials
- Multiple Phase IIs are being planned for 2006
- Allon has a strong technology platform for multiple indications
- Graduated to TSX in Sept ‘05
- Allon has met all corporate financial goals, successfully completed two financings and is in a strong financial position with enough cash on hand until end of ’07
"Allon is delighted to receive this recognition," said Allon's President and Chief Executive Officer Gordon McCauley. "This award is a tribute to our team, which has successfully advanced Allon's widely-validated clinical compounds in a very short period of time.”
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BioAxone Therapeutic Inc. is a privately owned neuroscience company specializing in the development and commercialization of proprietary technologies that target Rho signaling. Rho signaling is involved in a number of medical indications that include central nervous system (CNS) injury and degenerative diseases, ophthalmology and cancer. BioAxone is a product-driven company, with one product in clinical phase I/IIa for the treatment of acute spinal cord injury and several product candidates in preclinical phase for the treatment of macular degeneration and glaucoma. The Company has demonstrated expertise in recombinant protein product development and has a focused small molecule program. BioAxone was established in April 2000 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.
“The entire team at BioAxone is very excited by the great news that BioAxone has been again selected as one of Canada’s Top 10 by the Ottawa Life Sciences Council. Following our nominations in 2002 and 2003, BioAxone has made consistent progress in advancing its clinical development programs. Being recognized for this by the OLSC is a great honor and motivation for all of us,” said Dr. Frank Bobe, President and CEO, BioAxone Thérapeutique Inc.
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Inimex Pharmaceuticals is a privately held biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the discovery, development, and commercialization of new medicines based on the selective modulation of the innate immune response.
Inimex medicines are the ‘next wave’ of innate immunity drugs – they are not antibiotics and are not ligands for Toll-like Receptors (TLR); rather, they appear to act by a novel mechanism which is functional even in mice depleted of key immune effector cells (e.g., B cells, T cells, or neutrophils).
Inimex medicines show promise to address serious unmet medical needs in infectious disease, cancer, and inflammatory disease. In particular, their rapid action and broad spectrum activity, uncomplicated by drug resistance, will fill the critical gap between vaccines and antibiotics for the prevention and management of infections in normal and immune suppressed patients.
Inimex has demonstrated the efficacy of prototype compounds in a range of animal models representative of pneumonia, cancer chemotherapy, surgical wounds, life threatening inflammation and abdominal infections. Inimex is currently raising a second round of venture financing to advance its lead program for hospital infections into clinical development and its inflammatory disease program into formal preclinical evaluation.
"Inimex is developing medicines that will change the way we prevent and treat infectious disease and inflammation. We are currently raising $US 20M in private equity capital to advance our novel compounds into clinical development,” stated Dr. John R. North, President & CEO, Inimex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. “It is very gratifying to be recognized as one of Canada's leading biotechnology investment opportunities by the distinguished panel from The Ottawa Life Sciences Council.”
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YM BioSciences is a cancer product development company. YM’s lead drug, tesmilifene, is a small molecule chemopotentiator effective in enhancing all known classes of chemotherapies currently used to treat cancer. YM recently completed enrolment of its 700 patient pivotal trial of tesmilifene for the treatment of women with rapidly progressing metastatic and recurrent breast cancer. Analysis of a previous Phase III trial demonstrated that tesmilifene extended median survival in a similar subgroup of patients by 143%.
YM is also developing nimotuzumab, an anti-EGFr humanized monoclonal antibody that has produced cytotoxic efficacy and evidence of survival benefit in a Phase II trial for children with brain cancer. AeroLEF™, YM’s unique inhalation delivered formulation of the established drug, fentanyl, to treat acute pain including cancer pain has completed a Phase IIa trial with positive results. YM is also developing Norelin™, a Phase II anti-cancer vaccine, and advancing a portfolio of preclinical compounds.
"YM BioSciences has the broadest and most advanced portfolio in Canada of products being developed for patients with cancer, even exceeding the development portfolios of many multi-national pharmaceutical companies. We believe this model is a foretaste of things to come as agile, focused, patient-sensitive development companies emerge to translate the output from centres of excellence internationally into products useful for human health,” said David Allan, Chairman and CEO, YM BioSciences Inc. “We are honoured to be chosen as one of the top 10 finalists in the highly-regarding process established by the Ottawa Life Sciences Council." |
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Zelos Therapeutics Inc. (“Zelos” or the “Company”) is an emerging clinical-stage drug development company that is applying its best-in-class synthetic analog of parathyroid hormone (PTH), Ostabolin-C™, to a range of medical needs including osteoporosis, psoriasis and bone marrow transplantation. The Zelos portfolio of development programs addresses three multi-billion dollar markets and offers a strongly positive balance of risk and reward.
Zelos is exploiting the unique therapeutic effect and proven commercial value of PTH analogs using a “No Research, Development Only” (NRDO) business model. PTH analogs are the only class of compounds currently on the market that have direct bone-building effect, a powerful therapeutic and commercial differentiator.
Ostabolin-C™ is an optimized, multipurpose PTH analog that has the potential to significantly outperform Eli Lily’s Forteo™ in osteoporosis, and to address novel markets for PTH analogs.
“We thank Canada's Top 10 jury for recognizing Zelos as one of the leading Life Science Companies in Canada. As we move forward, we hope to live up to the expectation that being a recipient of this award creates,” said Brian MacDonald, Chief Executive Officer, Zelos Therapeutics Inc.
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| Click here to view the jury profiles. |
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| © Copyright 2006 - Ottawa Life Sciences Council (OLSC), all rights reserved. |
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