Canadian biotech company developing ground-breaking therapeutic designed to minimize dermal scarring (fibrosis) TORONTO (February 16, 2016) — ScarX Therapeutics, a Canadian biotechnology company commercializing innovative treatments for dermal scarring…
MaRS Innovation today announced that Johnson & Johnson Innovation has expanded its collaboration with MaRS Innovation to identify and advance early-stage technologies of interest.
The announcement was made in advance of the 2015 BIO Convention, which takes place from June 15 to 18 in Philadelphia, PA. MaRS Innovation is participating as part of the Ontario delegation and will have kiosk space in the Ontario pavilion (#615).
This partnership was covered in BioCentury, GEN, PharmaBiz and FierceBiotech.
Earlier this year, Johnson & Johnson Innovation and MaRS Innovation announced their research partnership to advance three technologies focused on improving cardiac surgery outcomes, developing a blood test for depression, and identifying a diagnostic metabolite for both gestational and type 2 diabetes patients. The projects’ principal investigators are researchers from the University Health Network (Peter Munk Cardiac Centre), the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (with Indoc Research) and the University of Toronto.
“Johnson & Johnson Innovation is an excellent partner that understands exactly the kind of technology pipeline MaRS Innovation represents,” said Dr. Raphael Hofstein, president and CEO. “Renewing their longstanding relationship signals the value they see in this partnership with MaRS Innovation, our members and researchers within our network.”
The MaRS Innovation Industry Access Program (MI-IAP) is a simple, formalized process for marketing early-stage technologies to MI’s industry partners: Baxter, LifeLabs (formerly CML Healthcare), GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and IRICoR/Merck.
The program’s goal is to secure funding for researchers within MI’s membership through these collaborative, strategic R&D partnership programs.
The program is open to any researcher affiliated with MI’s 16 member institutions working on technologies in:
Successfully run in November 2013 and March 2014, the MI-IAP allows researchers to easily determine whether an industry partner is interested in co-developing their technologies. The application process is deliberately brief at the outset.
“The first disclosed grant under Merck & Co. Inc.’s Canadian translational initiative will bolster the ability of macrocycle-based Encycle Therapeutics Inc. to conduct lead optimization of its integrin [a4b7,] inhibitors for inflammatory bowel disease,” writes Michael J. Haas in SciBX’s feature on the partnership, “Merck Encycles through Canada.” The article appears in the publication’s December 4, 2014 issue.
Read the Encycle press release that prompted this article.
The article explores the current grant partnership between Merck, Encycle Therapeutics, MaRS Innovation, the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer–Commercialization of Research (IRICoR), and the Université de Montréal’s Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC), and takes an inside look at the company’s progress to date.
Here’s an excerpt:
Encycle is a spinout from the University of Toronto founded in 2012 to solve the primary challenges of macrocycle drugs–poor cell penetration and low oral availability.
According to Parimal Nathwani, the company was selected by MaRS Innovation and IRICoR (Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer–Commercialization of Research), two of the three agencies originally tasked with disbursement and management of the Merck fund, because it was a good match with IRIC’s competencies. The third agency, The Centre for Drug Research and Development, is not involved in this deal. IRICoR is the commercialization arm of IRIC.
“Encycle has a good chemistry platform and nice early discovery work on its integrin [a4b7,] inhibitor program, which is now at the point where it needs to move through lead optimization,” said Nathwani. “IRIC scientists have strong expertise in medicinal chemistry and have worked with industry on optimization, pharmacokinetics, toxicity and other preclinical studies, so they can provide Encycle with pharma-grade optimization.”
Vasomune Therapeutics, a MaRS Innovation start-up company from Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre’s Sunnybrook Research Institute, was featured in a BioCentury emerging company profile by Michael J. Haas.
The company is currently raising a Series A financing round and recently closed a seed investment with Genome Canada and an unnamed industry partner. MaRS Innovation also contributed a third of the investment, bringing the round’s total to $1.5 million.
Haas’ profile, “Vasomune: Lassoing Tie2,” is available behind a paywall on the BioCentury website.
Here’s a short excerpt:
Agonizing Tie2 could restore vascular integrity and limit tissue damage in kidney injury, but bringing together the four copies needed to activate the receptor is a job too big for small molecules or antibodies. Vasomune Therapeutics Inc. has shown its four-armed peptidomimetic, vasculotide, activates Tie2 and restores vascular integrity in [preclinical] models.
“Many renal diseases are ultimately characterized by a loss in vascular integrity that damages tubules in the kidney,” CEO Parimal Nathwani said. “Our idea is to use vasculotide to fix the problem and restore normal vascular integrity before it gets out of control.”
TORONTO (October 20, 2014) — Vasomune Therapeutics, a biotechnology start-up founded by Drs. Dan Dumont and Paul Van Slyke of Sunnybrook Research Institute (SRI) in partnership with MaRS Innovation, has received $1.5 million, in part through Genome Canada’s Genomic Applications Partnership Program (GAPP), to advance Vasculotide, the company’s lead Tie-2 activating agent, towards clinical development.
This announcement was covered in Biotechnology Focus.
The Honourable Ed Holder, Minister of State (Science and Technology) and Dr. Pierre Meulien, president and CEO of Genome Canada, announced the funding as part of 12 selected projects under Genome Canada’s Genomic Applications Partnership Program (GAPP), on October 15 in Wallenstein, Ontario.
“We believe that our technology is well positioned to accelerate from preclinical research into clinical development based on its strong data package,” said Parimal Nathwani, president and CEO of Vasomune Therapeutics. “This award, in combination with industry funding, validates the Vasculotide opportunity and gives us the required funds to advance the drug candidate toward the clinic.”
In preclinical studies, Vasculotide has shown to be an effective treatment for multiple renal diseases including acute kidney injury (AKI), which in humans is a possible outcome of kidney function loss that manifests in nearly a third of high-risk cardiac patients. AKI may result from short-term interruptions in blood flow during surgery; 11 percent of patients who develop AKI after bypass surgery will die. People who survive AKI are at risk of developing longer-term kidney complications such as chronic kidney disease or End Stage Renal Disease. Vasomune’s founders conceptualized and designed Vasculotide to bind to the Tie-2 receptor, which is responsible for maintaining vascular health (and thus blood flow).
With this new funding, a third from Vasomune and MaRS Innovation, a third from Genome Canada and a third from a leading multinational pharmaceutical company, Vasomune can transition its program into manufacturing optimization, pharmacokinetics and toxicology studies to prepare for clinical development in early 2016.
The MaRS Innovation Industry Access Program (MI-IAP) is a simple, formalized process for marketing early-stage technologies to MI’s industry partners: Baxter, LifeLabs (formerly CML Healthcare), GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Merck.
The program’s goal is to secure funding for researchers within MI’s membership through these collaborative, strategic R&D partnership programs.
First run in November 2013, the MI-IAP allows researchers to easily determine whether an industry partner is interested in co-developing their technologies. The application process is deliberately brief at the outset.
“Last fall, we received 28 statements of interest, 12 of which we invited to submit a non-confidential summary package,” said Ben Rogers, director, Technology Transfer & Scouting. “Of these, six have been invited for a technology presentation with an industry partner. We’d like to see all of those numbers grow during this application round.”
The program will also make it easier for researchers to find prospective industry partners.
MaRS Innovation (MI) has launched a unique funding program to match researchers with industry partners while advancing early stage technologies: the MaRS Innovation Industry Access Program (MI-IAP).
This program provides a simple mechanism to connect researchers with MI’s industry partners. The process and application form are intentionally brief to save researchers time and allow MI’s partners to review a wide range of remarkable technologies within the Toronto academic community in a short period of time.
“Many granting programs require an industry partner, but leave finding that partner to the researcher,” says Parimal Nathwani, vice-president of life sciences at MI. “Our Industrial Partnership Program completes that step for them. We also know researchers within our member institutions are incredibly busy, which is why we’ve adopted a streamlined process to save them time.”
The program is open to any researcher affiliated with our 16 member institutions working on technologies in:
TORONTO, Ontario, Canada – October 24, 2011 – DLVR Therapeutics Inc. (“DLVR”) - a privately-held biotechnology company currently focused on developing oncology therapeutics based on its proprietary high density lipoprotein-like…
TORONTO (August 16, 2010) – MaRS Innovation (MI) is pleased to announce that translational funding to support product development for early-stage technologies from its members has been successfully deployed from federal and provincial sources. At the federal level, three of MI’s commercialization projects have recently received notification of funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Proof of Principle (PoP) program, amounting to approximately $470,000.
Moreover, MI has successfully deployed about $1 million in proof of principle funding received from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation (MRI) through the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE). This provincial program was previously managed by the MI founding commercialization partners in the life and physical sciences, BioDiscovery Toronto (BDT) and Technology Transfer Toronto (TTT). MI is grateful that these organizations laid the foundation for provincial proof of principle funding and looks forward to continuing a successful provincial PoP program.
Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus, West Tower
108 College Street, Suite 530
Toronto, ON M5G 0C6
info@tiap.ca