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Apple Tree Partners is a private equity fund that was established in 1999 and based in New York, NY, with satellite offices in Princeton, NJ, Cambridge, MA and Brussels, Belgium. The firm controls up to $1.75 billion in assets under management and makes equity investments ranging from $100,000 for academic spinouts to $150 million dollar in later stage deals. The firm seeks to make investments around the globe with a focus on creating and building companies located within the US and Europe.

Immusoft’s mission is to develop a breakthrough platform for delivering targeted medicines — programming a patient’s own cells to become miniature drug factories.

Our technology instructs a patient's cells to constantly secrete gene-encoded medicines (biologics). It will enable new treatments by solving current delivery limitations and production challenges. We are initially targeting orphaned diseases. 

Immusoft’s platform can program cells to continually produce and secrete therapeutic proteins and rare antibodies that have been impossible to elicit with a vaccine. This approach makes possible treatments that are otherwise impractical due to short halflife, injection site reactions, production challenges or a small market size. It offers many of the benefits of traditional approaches and modern gene therapies with less risk and greater control.

Immusoft has received grants from the National Institutes of Health and Peter Thiel's Breakout Labs as well as support from private investors, including the former head of preclinical development at Seattle Genetics. We have an exclusive license option on our core technology from Caltech and have filed two additional patents covering our extensive modifications to the technology.

ISP technology could replace a lifetime of infusions with a patient’s own drug-producing cells.

Kineta® is a nationally-recognized biotechnology company focused on developing leading edge therapeutics in three large high need therapeutic areas: autoimmune disease, viral disease and chronic pain. Our company is focused on the development of novel drug candidates each the outcome of years of scientific exploration and supported by an extensive body of peer-reviewed NIH-supported research.

Xalud Therapeutics is developing novel, non-opioid therapies for the treatment of neuropathic pain and osteoarthritis. Our lead product, XT-101, has shown exceptional efficacy in the leading rodent models of pain and in canine patients with neuropathic pain and osteoarthritis. XT-101 has an excellent safety profile -- it does not cause sedation, dizziness, numbness, addiction or tolerance.  7 and 28 day GLP toxicology studies have been completed with excellent results.  Xalud intends to file an IND for a Phase I/IIa trial in mid-2015 and, pending funding, initiate clinical trials thereafter.

Xalud's approach to treating pain is fundamentally different than conventional approaches. XT-101 causes the body to produce the natural anti-inflammatory IL-10.  In neuropathic pain, the use of this broad spectrum anti-inflammatory reduces inflammation around the spinal cord and reduces aberant pain signaling.  In gold-standard rodent models, a single injection of XT-101 completely eliminates neuropathic pain for 12 weeks.  We have also tested XT-101 in canine patients with severe osteoarthritis that has been resistant to standard treatments.  In these patients, XT-101 has provided long lasting pain relief resulting in dramatically increased mobility and activity levels and increased joint flexibility.

To date, Xalud's efforts have been supported by over $6 million of grant funding from the NIH, the DOD, and disease foundations.  We seek to raise $6 to $10 Million to fund our initial clinical trial or trials.  These will be placebo controlled Phase I/IIa trials in actual patients.  Because XT-101 has an extended duration, we expect that these trials will provide the safety, efficacy and biomarker data necessary to support a robust Phase II program.

Rapid Development of Injection Molded Medical Devices
From Concept Through Transfer-to-Manufacturing

Symbient specializes in engineering research and development, prototyping and design-for-manufacturing of innovative medical devices that use injection molded components. Our highly experienced team consists of mechanical and biomedical engineers, industrial designers, machinists and molding technicians. They leverage our in-house rapid prototyping, and prototype tooling fabrication and injection molding to create proven, manufacturable designs with unmatched speed, efficiency and precision. These designs make up our deep portfolio of over 300 successful devices that have collectively generated hundreds of millions of dollars. They include FDA Class I, II and III devices, developed under our ISO 13485 certified quality management system.

Our Services Include:

• Concept Development
• Development Engineering
• Design-for-Manufacturing
• Industrial Design
• Project Rescue
• Design Control per IOS 13485
• Finite Element Analysis (FEA)
• Design Verification Testing
• Test Method Development
• Transfer to Manufacturing

Our In-House Capabilities and Expertise Include:

• Stereolithography (SLA) Prototyping
• CNC Machining / Fabrication
• Prototype Mold Fabrication
• Prototype Injection Molding of Devices for Testing, Trials and Studies
• Liquid Injection Molded (LIM) Silicone Prototype Molding
• Product Reliability Testing
• Plastics Assembly Expertise: Ultrasonic and Laser Welding, Heat Sealing, Pressure Sensitive Adhesives, Swaging, Snap Fits, Press Fits, Interlocks.
• Speed: Prototype Molds in as little as 1 week and Modifications in as little as 1 Day
• Material Selection Expertise, Research and Testing to Ensure All Product Requirements Are Met.

Our Portfolio Includes:

• Diagnostics / Molecular Diagnostics
• Sample collection / preparation
• Life Sciences / Microfluidics
• OTC Consumer products
• Respiratory
• Surgical devices and clinical tools
• Drug Delivery

Brio Device, LLC is a medical device company and spin-out of the University of Michigan Medical Innovation Center based in Ann Arbor, MI. Brio develops airway management devices and intubation instruments.

PROBLEM: High Intubation Failure  

There are 20M+ intubations performed in the US every year. Depending on setting and skill of the clinician, failure rates range from 2% - 40% resulting in approximately 2,000,000 intubation failures every year. Intubation, the procedure to insert a plastic tube into the trachea, requires significant expertise and experience to do well.  With current products in the market, the tube often is inserted multiple times before it is properly placed, resulting in damage to the patient such as broken teeth, torn vocal cords, or insertion into the stomach leading to aspiration and pneumonia.  Three main factors affect intubation success rates: the user’s experience level, having directional control of the tube during insertion, and continuous visualization appreciated in bronchoscopes.  Clinicians need a single go-to device which is appropriate for use both in routine intubation and difficult airway cases offering guidance, maneuverability and visualization necessary to be successful. Failed intubation is the most common preventable cause of trauma-related deaths.  Approximately 180,000 deaths per year list complications associated with failed intubation.

SOLUTION: Brio’s Articulating & Video Stylets  

Brio is introducing a suite of products intended to improve intubation success rates for planned and emergent intubations, minimizing reliance on clinician skill for success.  The products range from disposable mechanical devices to devices with imbedded software providing anatomic image recognition guidance for the clinician. The devices have three critical elements to assist users in locating the trachea and maneuvering the endotracheal tube. 

1. Articulating tip with thumb-controlled steering

2. Continuous visualization

3. Visual guidance software 

BUSINESS MODEL

Brio’s core competencies are R&D, product development, sales and marketing of medical devices.  Projections are built on three revenue streams: two disposable stylets (one with and one without a camera) and a reusable video display.   Brio has an agreement with a manufacturing partner to facilitate design history files, regulatory compliance, manufacturing and customer service.

FUNDING  & MILESTONES

Brio has received $815,000 funding, including $690K in non-dilutive grants and $125k in convertible notes.  The Company has received Small Business Investigational Research (SBIR) Grants from the NIH.  

Immunova is a startup with  an IP portfolio licensed from Yale and the Johns Hopkins Universities.

Immunova's technology platform has a unique capability to deliver one or more drugs to the tumor/disease microenvironment. The drugs can be proteins, small molecules or nucleic acids. The delivery platfrom has demonstatable advantages over other delivery systems. The technology has applications in oncology and inflammation.

The company's lead asset is positioned in oncology. IMM-01, consists of two drugs that (a) undermine the tumor micorenvironment and (b) increase anti-tumor cell mediated immunity. This asset is capable of curing mice of metastatic disease. Further, it significantly enhances the activites of immune checkpoint inhibitors. It is non toxic.

The company is seeking investment and R&D partners. Immunova has defined the path to a Phase I/IIa multidose trial which could initiate within 15 months of funding. Immunova is also seeking partners who wish to validate this platform in oncology and inflammation.

Aperiomics, Inc. is a next generation sequencing service company with a mission to detect virtually any pathogen from any clinical, agricultural, or environmental sample.  This service platform uses a combination of next-generation sequencing and advanced bioinformatic data analysis to identify pathogens in various samples.  Aperiomics’ proprietary service platform focuses on pathogens of public and animal health importance, satisfying the increasing need for more robust and more efficient next-generation sequencing data analysis.

The impact of Aperiomics’ technologies is broad due to our unique approach to pathogen detection. Instead of blindly probing for a proverbial ‘needle in a haystack’, Aperiomics’ approach analyzes the entire ‘haystack’ using next-generation sequencing and harnessing the power of bioinformatics to identify all ‘needles’. This approach is transformative compared to current pathogen detection methods. Aperiomics’ proprietary service, Absolute*NGS Pathogen Detection Platform, screens samples (clinical, environmental, etc.) for the presence of any microbe (fungal, viral, bacterial, eukaryotic parasite) – including pathogens that have never before been identified. This platform technology has broad application across diverse markets such as health care, agriculture, environmental, industrial, and veterinary testing.

Kineta® is a nationally-recognized biotechnology company focused on developing leading edge therapeutics in three large high need therapeutic areas: autoimmune disease, viral disease and chronic pain. Our company is focused on the development of novel drug candidates each the outcome of years of scientific exploration and supported by an extensive body of peer-reviewed NIH-supported research.

MP Healthcare Ventures is the corporate venture arm of Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma founded in 2006 and based in Boston Massachusetts. The firm is looking to provide equity capital to seed and venture stage companies in the life science space. The firm is looking to provide companies with $5 million over the lifetime of the investment and plans on making 2-3 investments over the next year. The firm will invest in companies located anywhere around the world.