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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.

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.

Did you know that 10-15% of LASIK patients are turned away due to inadequate eye measurement equipment?  This laser refractive eye surgery market has a crying need for the next generation measurement tool now to capture these additional patients and improve on existing procedures and outcomes.

Did you know that ophthalmologists suffer significant measurement problems in accurately predicting the ELP (Effective Lens Position) in cataract surgery/Intra-Ocular Lens (IOL) procedures?

The ArcScan Artemis-3 system addresses both of these market needs and more.

ArcScan has already raised all funding needed ($3 million) to enter the laser refractive surgery market, with product introduction expected in 12 months.

The ArcScan Series A Preferred funding round of $3 million currently has $1 million available to investors from now through February, 2015, or until sold-out, whichever occurs first.

ArcScan is attending the RESI conference to raise the final $1,000,000 in Series A Preferred share subscriptions, which will allow us to accelerate entry into the large cataract surgery/IOL market and nearly double the size of the business.

Please request a meeting at RESI or contact ArcScan CEO Andy Levien for an executive summary and further investment details.

Arcus Ventures was founded in 2007 and is based in New York City. Arcus Ventures is currently investing from its second fund, which had a first close of $36m in 2014 and is targeting a raise of $100m. The firm typically invests $2-5 million. Arcus invests primarily in the USA but is also open to considering opportunities in Canada.

Armune BioScience is a medical diagnostics company formed to develop and commercialize unique technology for diagnostic and prognostic tests for prostate, lung and breast cancers. The technology is unique because it utilizes autoantibodies created by the body’s own immune system to detect cancer at an early stage. When the immune system recognizes a cancer antigen it creates an autoantibody to the antigen which is replicated by the immune system. Armune’s technology can be used to detect these autoantibodies in serum.

Early detection and prognosis of cancer is critical not only in selecting appropriate treatment protocols, but also in increasing 5-year survival rates among cancer patients. Cancer detection in early stages is typically performed by detecting cancer-specific serum antigens. Unfortunately, cancer serum antigens are present at very low levels in early stage disease. Also, a single detectable cancer antigen may not be present in all patients due to heterogeneity of the disease and therefore multiple biomarkers are needed. Detection of serum autoantibody responses to tumor antigens provides more reliable serum marker(s) for cancer diagnosis. Serum autoantibodies are more stable than serum antigens and may be more abundant than antigens, especially at low tumor burdens characteristic of early stage cancer. The technology does not detect cancer per se, but looks for the immune response to cancer.

Armune’s initial focus is on a prostate cancer diagnostic test. The PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) test is currently used as a prostate cancer diagnostic test and it has good sensitivity (~86%), but very poor specificity (20 to 30%) resulting in high false positive rates (70 to 80%) and many unnecessary biopsies and costs.

Artery Therapeutics is a San Francisco Bay Area based translational biotechnology company with worldwide collaborations. Artery's novel peptide library derived from Apolipoprotein E shows promising results in various animal studies for diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Diabetes mellitus, and Acute Coronary Syndrome.

Avisa Pharma™ Inc., (AVISA) is a Point Of Care, In-Vivo Platform Technology Company With An Innovative, Integrated System For The Rapid Detection And Monitoring Of Respiratory Diseases. A paradigm shift away from lab based In Vitro testing; an In Vivo, point of care, breath test that measures the whole lung, live organisms, not a single culture sample in a petri dish or PCR;for non sputum producers - the only test that can detect lung bacteria without a sputum culture; A razor/razorblade Model to Drive Rapid Market Penetration and Growth.

Focused initially on respiratory health, the clinical study strategy is to pursue fastest route to regulatory approvals, the detection of Tuberculosis (TB), followed by Healthcare Acquired Pneumonia (HCAP), Ventilator Associated Pneumonia (VAP), Cystic Fibrosis (CF) and COPD. These applications have the potential to help save millions of lives and millions of dollars in healthcare costs each year, and a multi billion $ market opportunity.  

$6 million Series A1 Preferred round underway, $4 million received from current investors exercising preemptive rights. Q1 2015 Avisa will be launching a 40 patient pilot TB study in South Africa.

Arizona’s bioscience and health care industry benefits from strong relationships with major institutions, hospitals, private firms and the state's public universities. CNBC ranks the state second nationwide in availability of skilled workforce, and biomedical jobs are growing three times faster than the national average.  In addition to our aggressive incentive programs, Arizona is committed to attracting and supporting quality companies through competitive tax policies and has demonstrated a continued trend of reducing property, individual sales and corporate income tax rates.  An example of some of the key programs and incentives for the biosciences includes:

• AZ Innovation Challenge – $3 million ($1.5 million twice yearly) for technology commercialization to the world’s most promising technology ventures. Awards range from $100,000 to $250,000 per company.

• Angel Investment Tax Credit - provides tax credits up to 35% for investors who make capital investment in small businesses certified by the Arizona Commerce Authority (ACA).   

• Arizona Innovation Accelerator Fund - an $18.2 million loan participation program to stimulate financing of small businesses and manufacturers by providing debt financing up to $2 million.  Recognized by the US Treasury as a Best Practice model of its kind

• R&D Tax Credit/Refund – refundable and non-refundable programs for increased R&D activities.  Income tax credits up to 34% for qualified expenses. Up to 75% of the excess tax credit can be refunded.

BIOARRAY is a biotech company located at the Science park in New Haven. BIOARRAY is customizing treatments for patients to cure breast cancer the first time. BIOARRAY’s lead breast cancer test has been shown to reduce ineffective treatments by over 50% in proof of concept studies. BIOARRAY is a recipient of Avon Foundation and Connecticut Innovations funds. BIOARRAY is a MassChallenge Accelerator Winner.

Bionure is a late-preclinical company focused at developing First-in-Class SGK agonists for the treatment of orphan ophthalmological diseases.

Bionure's main candidate is BN201, a small molecule, new chemical entity, first-in-class drug that promotes neuroprotection and remyelination by means of a novel MOA.

Our main therapeutic focus is Optic Neuritis (ON), an acute, inflammatory disease of the optic nerve that qualifies for orphan status. BN201 has been granted orphan designation for the treatment of ON and the patent has been granted.

Preclinical efficacy studies have been performed in several animal models and a pre-IND meeting has been held with the FDA to validate our preclinical and clinical development. 

BN201 is now through the regulatory toxicology studies to enable IND by Q2 2015.