Band of Angels

The Band of Angels is a funding organization that was founded in 1994 and it is based in Silicon Valley California. The organization typically provides capital to companies through three programs: The Band of Angels Acorn Fund and The Band of Angels Venture Fund. The group focuses on seed and Series A stage high-tech companies across several industries including life science space. The Band of Angels generally makes investments ranging from $3K to $75k but it often leads a syndication of $2-3million. Acorn Fund which is The Band?s third side fund and was founded in 29 generally makes investments ranging from $1k to $75k. The Band of Angels Venture Fund is a $5 million venture fund which raised in 1999 by The Band of Angels. Initial investment sizes of the fund are typically $3 and can go up to $2.5 million. The Band generally makes around 1 -2 investments per year. The group focuses on companies based in Silicon Valley but it will consider selective opportunities in Los Angles and San Diego areas. The group's portfolio includes biotechnology and medical device companies working with oncology and muscle recovery.
Brian Frenzel
Member 
Michael Bates
Member, Board of Directors 

Baxter Ventures

Baxter Ventures is the strategic venture arm of Baxter International Inc. that was formed in 2011 and is based in Deerfield, Illinois. The firm is currently making equity investments out of a $200 Million fund with allocations generally falling in the $3-$5 million range. The firm is looking in invest in companies who have previously or are currently in the process of securing investment from other institutional investors. The firm is willing to look globally for investment opportunities and plans to make approximately 2 new investments over the next 6-9 months.

Priyanka Rohatgi
Director 

BCAL Diagnostics Pty Ltd Australia

BCAL Diagnostics is a Sydney, Australia based blood diagnostics company with research facilities based in Kentucky, USA.

The BCAL lipid biomarker test is a universal blood test for the effective screening and monitoring of breast cancer.  The BCAL test is being developed to be safe, cost effective, accurate and available to all women regardless of age, race and geographic location.

BCAL Diagnostics is near completion of a 200-patient study. Initial results indicate the BCAL test has a greater than 90% sensitivity and specificity in the diagnosis of invasive ductal carcinoma which is 85% of all breast cancers. 

This will lead to a range of BCAL breast cancer blood tests that can be used across the full breast cancer disease management continuum. from pre-disposition to screening to long term monitoring.

BCAL Diagnostics is now seeking Series B capital of $5-$10M USD to support its global commercialisation activities.

Year Founded
2010
Biotech Subsector
Medtech Subsector
Medtech Phase of Development
Technology Overview
Breast Cancer Associated Lipids
Alliance & Collaborations
Research agreements with Kentucky University USA and Royal Prince Alfred Hospital - NSW Australia
Supporting Metrics or Evidence
80 patient study completed - 200 patient study near completion
Current Financing Needs
$5-$10M Series B
Current Investors
small number of highly sophisticated investors
IP Status
Strong - patents pending
Recent Milestones
Completed 100 sample study with 90% sensitivity and specificity results for the detection of invasive ductal carcinoma
Management Team Highlights
CEO has global diagnostic experience with Roche Diagnostics, Boehringer Mannheim and Cochlear. Management team has extensive lipids in cancer experience with published papers and PhD
Philip Daffas
LinkedIn logo CEO 
BIO

 

Phiilip Daffas is the CEO  of BCAL Diagnostics Pty Ltd a Sydney based diagnostics company. With a career spanning more than 25 years, he brings a wealth of experience in global sales, marketing and business development in the medical devices and diagnostics market. 

 Philip has been based in Sydney since 2001 and has held senior global business leadership positions in Europe, US and Australia with blue chip healthcare companies. He has been instrumental in building businesses, growing market share and developing extensive high-level customer and industry relationships in each sector.

 Roles in Australia have included VP Global Marketing at Cochlear and General Management roles with Roche Diagnostics and Bio-Rad Laboratories and CEO of Applied Physiology, an Australian start up company in the intensive care monitoring sector.

Philip’s earlier experience was gained in Europe with market leaders such as IVAC infusion systems and Shiley cardiopulmonary products. He subsequently joined Boehringer Mannheim, initially in the UK managing their diagnostics business and subsequently was promoted to Global Marketing Director for the Diabetes Care business based in Mannheim, Germany.

In 1997 Philip joined Cochlear in the UK as the European Sales and Marketing Manager and subsequently was promoted to the VP Global Marketing role based in Sydney, Australia.

Graduated in the UK with a BSc and Diploma in Electronic Engineering, Philip also holds an MBA and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD).


Peter French
Director & Scientific Advisor 
Dharmica Mistry
Scientific Officer 

Becton Dickinson (BD)

BD (Becton Dickinson and Company) based in Franklin Lakes NJ is a leading medical technology company that partners with customers and stakeholders to address many of the world?s most pressing and evolving health needs. Their innovative solutions are focused on improving drug delivery enhancing the diagnosis of infectious diseases and cancers supporting the management of diabetes and advancing cellular research. The firm has nearly 3 associates in 5 countries who strive to fulfill our purpose of ?Helping all people live healthy lives? by advancing the quality accessibility safety and affordability of healthcare around the world. For more information please visit www.bd.com. BD partners with companies from their formation through to commercialization including expansion of operations and channel access. BD considers a variety of engagement models including research collaborations licenses investments and acquisition when partnering with companies aligned with BD?s core businesses and new areas of strategic interest seeking opportunities from around the globe.
Albert Lauritano
Director Strategic Technology Partnerships 

Bioarray Therapeutics Inc. United States

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.

Biotech Subsector
Biotech Phase of Development
Technology Overview

In contrast to most studies that focus on the unhealthy cancer patient populations, BIOARRAY studies cancer in reverse by using genes in healthy cell organization to identify cancer markers. These biomarkers work like surveillance cameras watching how a particular breast cancer will behave when treated with chemotherapy. By measuring the mRNA expression levels of these biomarkers, Bioarray diagnostic tests significantly increase the accuracy of predicted chemo-response rates.

Alliance & Collaborations
Avon Foundation, Connecticut Innovations
Supporting Metrics or Evidence

BIOARRAY's lead test distinguishes itself by addressing a vital question at the beginning of basic chemotherapeutic treatment for 75% of diagnosed breast cancer patients who currently have a 24% response rate. BIOARRAY's test clinical proof of concept studies showed:

55% reduction in ineffective chemo

68% improvement in response rate

42% of patients classified as non-responders up front

Current Financing Needs

The company is raising its Series A round of financing to achieve key milestones to take the lead test to early adoption.

Current Timeline

BIOARRAY has developed a business plan whereas the Bioarray diagnostic uses commercially-available gene-expression platforms such as PCR for its lab analysis. BIOARRAY will engage licensees and distributors to access the global market. BIOARRAY will hold closely the proprietary algorithms at the heart of the diagnostic in a cloud-based information platform. BIOARRAY's lead test is in a position to go to market within 2 years.

Current Investors

Grant: Avon Foundation – first of its kind from Avon

Equity: Connecticut Innovations and Angels

IP Status

BIOARRAY intellectual property includes methods, algorithms and biomarkers. BIOARRAY strategy to protect its intellectual property is a combination of trade secrets and patents. The company is growing a patent portfolio of US and international patents that is exclusively owned by BIOARRAY and is not subject to licensing or royalty obligations.

Recent Milestones

  1. Performed clinical proof of concept with I-SPY 1 clinical trial
  2. Data gathered (and ready to complete analysis) for I-SPY 2 trial
  3. Built cloud-based interactive information platform and interactive portal
  4. Built laboratory infrastructure
  5. Developed IP strategy comprising know-how and patents (internationally filed)
Management Team Highlights

CEO Marcia Fournier has over a decade of experience in oncology at leading Institutions in the US. Non-executive chairman Michal Preminger and Board Directors Una Ryan and Henry Kay have extensive experience in management, financing, acquisitions, and diagnostics. The Company also has a team of active business advisors with experience in business development, acquisitions and venture capital.

Marcia Fournier
Marcia Fournier
LinkedIn logo CEO 
BIO

Marcia, a molecular biologist, came to the United States from Brazil about 15 years ago. Marcia is trained in genetics with 10+ years of experience in cancer research. She most recently held a position at GlaxoSmithKline, Oncology Center of Excellence for Drug Discovery. Marcia’s work as a doctoral fellow at the Dana-Farber Institute and postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley led to seminal publications on biomarker discovery.

Rana Gupta
Rana Gupta
LinkedIn logo Business Advisor 
BIO

Rana K, Gupta is trained as a businessman (not a techie), Rana has worked in several industries (pharma, consulting, VC), but he comes to BIOARRAY as a result of having invested in, run, and ultimately sold diagnostic company HistoRx to Novartis.

 

BioScience Managers Australia

BioScience Managers is a venture capital life science investment firm headquartered in Melbourne, Australia. The group makes equity investments from $3M-5M and anticipates about 6 new investments this year. BioScience Managers invests globally. 

BioScience Managers will invest in companies across the life science space, including therapeutics, diagnostics and medical technology. The group does not invest in service providers. BioScience Managers considers all subsectors and indications, including orphan indications. The group will consider technology either in or prepared for human clinical trials and is open to all classes of devices. BioScience Managers seeks investments in novel technology and is not looking to gain share of an existing market. 

Investor Type
Biotech Phase of Development
Medtech Phase of Development
Capital Structure Preference
Investment Stage Preference
Jeremy Curnock Cook
Managing Director 
Amanda Gillon
Investment Analyst 
Matt McNamara
CIO 

Biosortia Pharmaceuticals United States

Biosortia has opened the door to a new frontier of fascinating compounds that have the potential to materially impact the direction of various chronic diseases.  We are dedicated to discovering new chemical entities for the management of critical chronic disease states such as cancer, neuroscience, infectious disease, and inflammatory disorders to ultimately improve the lives of others.

Value Proposition

Pharma is looking for 3 key things:

1. Novel, never seen before, chemistry from new environments to fight chronic disease

2. Higher levels of potency (nano to Pico molar) to reduce the impact of side-effects

3. New mechanisms of action to fight chronic disease in new and more effective manner

It is well known that micro-organism consortia (not macro) are one of the most biologically active and chemically diverse plant/fungi that are rich in what we call “Defense Mechanism Chemistry”.  Defense Mechanism Chemistry is key in developing drugs for cancer, infectious disease and inflammation.  The problem is no one has been able to get access to this unique chemistry at scale and have the natural products expertise to identify the unique compounds…until now.  

We will provide Pharma with new compounds, rich in “Defense Mechanism Chemistry” on a routine basis that could shorten the discovery cycle by 2-3 years and reduce the overall cost.  

Best Regards,

Kurt Dieck

President and CEO

kdieck@biosortia.com

(614) 296-7076

Year Founded
2008
Biotech Subsector
Biotech Phase of Development
Technology Overview
Mobile, scalable, technology that maintains the integrity of the cell. Biosortia has proprietary methods & technologies that allow us to harvest unique single cellular micro-organism consortia never before studied and in unprecedented quantities targeting 500-1,000kg dry weight solids (DWS). Our technologies and capabilities open up this rich environment of bioactive and chemically diverse compounds for research in the pharmaceutical space for the first time ever. Biosortia’s relationship with NOAA and our Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with them provides Biosortia with identification and access to distinctly qualified harvest locations.
Alliance & Collaborations
(Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, Eisai and Cubist Pharmaceuticals) with more in the pipeline.
Supporting Metrics or Evidence
Promising Early Results with big pharma (Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, Eisai and Cubist Pharmaceuticals) with more in the pipeline. • Eli Lilly’s OIDD To date, nearly 100% of Compounds of Interest submitted into Eli Lilly’s Open Innovation Drug Discovery (OIDD) program have been accepted for evaluation…compared to an average 50-60% rejection rate on all submissions. This unprecedented achievement has recently earned Biosortia the inaugural “Collaborator of the Year” award from Lilly. In addition, due to the success in the OIDD Program, Lilly asked to join our Pharma Direct Model and test our fraction library. Initial results across simple 2 assays have produced 10 leads that they desire to follow-up in December 2014. • Big Pharma Interest As of September 30, 2014 we have 4 Big Pharma companies in our Pharma Direct Model (Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, Cubist and Eisai) with 3 others in the pipeline in various stages of discussions.
Current Financing Needs
Capital- Biosortia has raised 2 rounds of series A Preferred Shares; November 2012 of $1.1M ($29M pre-money valuation) and September 2013 of $3.9M ($35M pre money valuation). In addition, it secured $1 million loan (2% interest) from the State of Ohio, therefore meeting our original desired capital raise of $4-5 million. The current raise is for $3-$6 million dollar to provide the runway to our first licensing agreement in Q4 2015 and drive the scaling of science capability to support the volume from our fraction libraries to be launched in Q1 of 2015.
Current Timeline
Hit rates well in excess of expectations Through our Pharma Direct Partners and 8 academic collaborators, we have over 50% of our fractions active against various therapy areas. This demonstrates both the richness of our compounds and the diversity across multiple therapy areas. With one of our Big Pharma partners alone, we have 48 active fractions/wells, with 20 showing inhibition of cancer growth from 90-99.8%. • Clear pathway to first license event in 2015 We can share with you a clear pathway to a license event in 2015. AZ, Lilly and Eisai are all on schedule to complete their R&D efforts by Q3 of 2015 that will put them in position to determine which compounds of interest they would like to license.
Recent Milestones
To date, nearly 100% of Compounds of Interest submitted into Eli Lilly’s Open Innovation Drug Discovery (OIDD) program have been accepted for evaluation…compared to an average 50-60% rejection rate on all submissions. This unprecedented achievement has recently earned Biosortia the inaugural “Collaborator of the Year” award from Lilly.
Management Team Highlights
Experienced Leadership Team & Advisors Biosortia’s leadership team has over 135 years of healthcare and life science experience with expertise in both pharmaceutical research and the micro-organism aquatic environments with the capability to provide new chemistry in a research ready format and co-develop with Pharma to pre-clinical. -Kurt D. Dieck, President and CEO - Mr. Dieck has spent 30 years in healthcare, including 18 years at Arthur Andersen where he was a global equity partner. In 2002, Kurt joined Cardinal Health, a Fortune 20 public company as a senior executive; where over his tenure he had responsibilities for Strategy, Business Development and ultimately SVP of Business Execution for the $100B pharmaceutical distribution segment. There he worked with a broad spectrum of partners, including brand pharmaceutical manufacturers, throughout the supply chain. Kurt also sits on two other healthcare related boards that are owned by Private Equity firms. -Guy T. Carter, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer – Dr. Carter has over 30 years of experience working in Pharmaceutical R&D, primarily in the discovery and development of microbial products. In the course of his career in the pharmaceutical industry he worked as a natural products discovery scientist and advanced through levels of scientific management to the overall leadership of the Natural Products Discovery function at Wyeth Research (later acquired by Pfizer), as well as directing other elements of the Chemical Technologies Department. Guy received a doctorate in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and then pursued marine natural products research on an NIH-sponsored post-doctoral fellowship with Kenneth Rinehart at the University of Illinois. -Haiyin He, Ph.D., VP of Research – Dr. He has more than 20 years of experience in pharmaceutical R&D, specializing in discovery of drug leads from natural products and their semi-synthetic analogs in oncology, infectious disease, and other therapeutic areas. Haiyin worked as a principle scientist III and group leader at Wyeth Research and after the merger between Pfizer and Wyeth, he continued on to work at Pfizer World Wide Medicinal Chemistry as an associate research fellow in the area of antibody-drug conjugates for cancer chemotherapy. Haiyin received a doctorate in marine natural products at Scripps Institution of Oceanography with John Faulkner, and then acquired a postdoctoral experience at Chemistry Department, Cornell University with Jon Clardy.
Dr Guy Carter
Dr Guy Carter
LinkedIn logo CSO 
Mr Kurt Dieck
Mr Kurt Dieck
LinkedIn logo President and CEO 

Boehringer Ingelheim

Boehringer Ingelheim was founded in 1885 and is based in Ingelheim am Rhein Germany. The firm invests by means of in-licensing and acquisitions and is primarily focused on respiratory diseases cardiovascular diseases metabolic diseases oncology diseases of the central nervous system and immunology. Boehringer Ingelheim also invests in veterinary medicine.

Imran Nasrullah
Director Innovation Sourcing 

Brace Pharmaceuticals United States

Brace Pharmaceuticals is based in Rockville, MD, and is a strategic investment company formed by Brazil-based pharma company EMS S/A. Brace investment structure varies depending on a company’s development stage; for early-stage opportunities Brace typically makes equity investments and may syndicate with other investors, whereas for clinical-stage opportunities Brace is more likely to form strategic partnerships that involve rights to an asset. Brace is open to considering therapeutic opportunities globally, but only if the company is pursuing the US market.

Brace Pharmaceuticals invests in therapeutics; about 80% of the firm’s investments are in clinical-stage assets, with a preference for companies with some human proof-of-concept data; the remaining 20% of investments are made in preclinical opportunities. Drug-device combinations will also be considered, but Brace does not invest in diagnostics. The firm will invest in both small and large molecules, and has a strong preference for investing in orphan drugs and other niche disease areas. It is preferred that indications have validated clinical endpoints and can be studied using small trials. Indications that require large clinical trials, including as cardiovascular diseases and primary care indications (such as influenza) will not be considered.

Basheer Zada
Business Development 
Vinzenz Ploerer
President & CEO 
Todd Brady
Director of Finance 

Breakout Labs

Breakout Labs was founded by the Thiel Foundation in 211 and is based in San Francisco CA. Breakout Labs provides seed grants of $35 to 8-1 early stage companies per year. Companies must reach specific milestones in order to receive installments of the grant. Breakout Labs grants are in the form of a convertible note that if the company raises a Series A round will convert based on the Series A valuation, however if the company fails before raising a Series A round no debt will be due. Additionally when a portfolio company becomes revenue-generating or is acquired Breakout Labs receives a 3% royalty payment capped at 3x the value of the grant. Breakout Labs funds companies throughout the USA.
Lindy Fishburne
Executive Director 
Michelle Kim-Danely
Portfolio Manager