Dr Crystal Icenhour United States

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.

Year Founded
2013
Biotech Subsector
Medtech Subsector
Biotech Phase of Development
Medtech Phase of Development
Current Financing Needs
$5M Series A
Dr Crystal Icenhour
Aperiomics
LinkedIn logo CEO 
BIO

Crystal R. Icenhour, PhD received her PhD in Pathobiology and Molecular Medicine from the University of Cincinnati Medical School of Graduate Studies in 2002.  She conducted postdoctoral research in the Thoracic Diseases Research Unit at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine from 2002-2005 and in the Department of Infectious Diseases at Duke University Medical Center from 2005-2006.  Dr. Icenhour has been involved in local and national postdoctoral associations including the Mayo Research Fellows Association Executive Committee (President), the Duke University Postdoctoral Association (chair of membership committee), and the National Postdoctoral Association (2008 Chair).  Dr. Icenhour was President & Chief Science Officer for Phthisis Diagnostics, a biotechnology company located in Charlottesville, Virginia from 2007-2013.  In 2014 Dr. Icenhour was hired as CEO of Aperiomics in Ashburn, Virginia.  Aperiomics’ focus is to harness the power of next-generation sequencing to improve world health.

Elena Ikhsanova

ATEM Capital manages evergreen Life Sciences investment fund - Health Square Fund (HSF). HSF acts as a consolidator of capital flows from the Emerging Markets and invests into the biotech innovation hubs of the US/Western Europe. HSF's international team combines big-picture business perspective with decades of investment scientific legal portfolio risk management and operational experience. The fund is audited by a Big-4 firm. Our Advisory Board comprises high-caliber entrepreneurs VC veterans and seasoned Wall Street professionals.
ATEM Capital
COO General Partner 

Blake Ilstrup United States

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.

Biotech Phase of Development
Technology Overview

Kineta® is developing a pipeline of next-generation medicines to respond to the needs of millions of people facing diseases around the world. Our scientific areas of expertise are immunology and neuropathic pain with research directed at curbing inflammation and returning the immune system to normal function. Kineta has five unique drug programs in development and each program represents a novel mechanism-of-action and has potential to result in a new class of drug. The innovative portfolio is derived from leading edge scientific research that taps into promising recently discovered cellular channels that control the body's defense mechanisms. Kineta’s drug programs are designed to enhance or modulate the natural human immune system and show great potential to be more effective, more tolerable and confer fewer side effects than existing drugs. We anticipate our products will be highly sought after by patients, healthcare providers and the pharmaceutical industry.

Alliance & Collaborations
27 Scientific and academic collaborations
Current Financing Needs

Series B round of $5M with follow on series C for an additional $20M.

Current Timeline

Autoimmune drug successfully completed phase I clinical trials and is currently in a phase 1B extension study to be completed 1st quarter.  In discussions with numerous large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies around a licensing transaction.

Antiviral and pain programs are currently in pre-clinical development with high industry interest.  We are in significant partnering discussions around several of our anti-viral drug candidates.

Current Investors

We have raised $36M since 2008.  This has been augmented with an additional $52M in NIH funding.

Our current investors are accredited investors, high net worth individuals, Family Offices, a boutique PE group and the Iacocca Foundation.

IP Status
  Protected Pipeline Secured with a
Valuable IP Portfolio ØStrong IP across each development program ØProprietary expertise in innate immunity & autoimmunity Ø27 Patent Families (28 owned, 6 in-licensed) •45 Issued Patents •154 Pending country applications •7 Pre-nationalized PCT or provisional families
Management Team Highlights

Chuck Magness, PhD

CEO

Human Genome Project; Co-founded & Sold Illumigen Biosciences ($17M + 321M); Kineta Enterprise >$60M

Shawn Iadonato, PhD

CSO

Human Genome Project; Illumigen Biosciences; Grew 5 Kineta Programs; 1st Kv1.3 in Clinic; >$35M  R&D Funds

Craig Philips, MBA

Commercial Operations

 VP & GM, Schering Plough, VP & GM, Bayer, President & GM CTI

Blake Ilstrup, JD

General Counsel /

Corporate Dev.

Hundreds of transactions with Cooley and Venture Law Group, General Counsel of Qpass, 6 Kineta transactions

Rob Hedequist

Corporate Development

Major Accounts, Managed Care & Sales/ Marketing Pfizer and Amgen; National Director Schering–Plough

Dan Eramian

Corporate Communications

First VP of communications for Biotech Industry Organization; US DOJ Director of Public Affairs; SBA

Ken North

Corporate Development

Founding CEO Seattle Savings Bank; Past president Seattle Kiwanis, Chamber of Commerce; Seafair Commodores

Dan Burge, MD

Clinical

Trubion (CMO), VP Early Development Immunex, Amgen (early development on Enbrel)

Jeff Fellows

Regulatory

Global Regulatory Lead Amgen,  VP Regulatory Alder, VP Regulatory CTI,  First Kv1.3 in clinic, Sensipar Amgen

Kineta

Tetsuro Iwata United States

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.

MP Healthcare Venture Management, Inc.
Senior Manager