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Advances in synthetic chemistry and drug screening techniques have flooded the pharmaceutical industry with potential new drugs. At the same time, industry consolidation and financial pressures on R&D budgets have reduced the ability of biotech and pharmaceutical companies to develop early stage drugs. As a result of these market forces, large pharmaceutical companies have restricted their drug development activities to "blockbuster" drugs ($1 billion revenues) with proven efficacy. Promising early-stage drugs developed in emerging biotech and pharmaceutical companies, and university research laboratories are being shelved. 
VDDI Pharmaceuticals has been formed to capitalize on these opportunities. The Company will license attractive product development opportunities from academic institutions, biotech firms and pharmaceutical companies. VDDI Pharmaceuticals will focus on pharmaceutical product opportunities where general proof-of-principle has already been established in pre-clinical or human testing, and where the products are novel and offer significant potential advantages to products currently in the market or in development. VDDI Pharmaceuticals will pursue early-stage products qualifying for fast track approval, primarily in the areas of cancer, cardiovascular disease and infectious disease and develop the products through Phase II of the required regulatory approval processes. The developed products will be licensed to existing pharmaceutical companies for product marketing, thereby generating license fees and ongoing royalties for VDDI Pharmaceuticals.

As its name suggests, VDDI Pharmaceuticals utilizes a virtual business model. Virtual drug development entails: (i) a small core group of employees responsible for strategic management, regulatory strategy, and financial control, (ii) outsourcing all non-core business functions, including preclinical and clinical drug development, and (iii) electronic data capture and data submission to regulatory authorities. By adopting this model, VDDI Pharmaceuticals believes it can reduce total drug development program costs by at least 25% and development times by up to 50%.

Ventac Partners is a dedicated life science investment and consulting firm with offices in Europe, USA and Asia. Ventac Partners has a strong track record in founding new innovative companies, fund raising and supporting M&A transactions.

All partners are experienced and hands-on life science entrepreneurs with proven track-record in successfully starting, funding, growing and expanding international life science companies.

VC fund focusing on investments in Switzerland and surounding areas

viDA is a preclinical biotechnology company pursuing the development of first-in-class drugs for the treatment of several inflammatory and age-related conditions of the skin, respiratory, musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and neurological systems.Our platform is based on recently identified, specifically extracellular, pathological roles of a family of serine proteases called Granzymes. 

Currently, our focus is specifically on extracellular Granzyme B (GzmB) and its role in a range of disease states involving inflammation and tissue damage. GzmB actively participates in the degradation of key components of the body’s extracellular matrix, which acts as a scaffold for cell binding and provides essential structural integrity for proper function of tissues and organs.

Based on this new mechanism of action, these molecules have shown positive therapeutic outcomes in a number of disease-specific models. viDA has been reviewing MS and the orphan indication of Discoid Lupus specifically.

Our lead compound is in preclinical development and is intended to be a topical treatment for Discoid Lupus. The lead candidate exhibits a high degree of specificity and selectivity for extracellular GzmB. The compound has attractive drug-like properties for topical application and is being assessed for other possible routes of administration amenable to treatment of other diseases.

The Company has developed a library of additional proprietary first-in-class small molecule inhibitors to GzmB. These innovative molecules will have specific properties amenable to treatment of diseases requiring different routes of administration. 

Studies using inhibitors and knockout approaches have demonstrated that GzmB inhibition does not suppress immunity.

Our clients are early-stage biotechnology, medical device, diagnostics and pharmaceutical service companies. When we begin working with a client they are frequently looking to complete proof-of-concept studies, secure intellectual property and other critical preliminary tasks. Typically we raise the first round ($1 - $5 million of capital) needed to accomplish these milestones, usually, but not always from angel investors. After key milestones have been achieved using that money, we generally follow by raising a second round of $5-20 million, usually institutional money, for development and growth

By working this way, we increase our clients' success rate raising capital and building their companies and the returns to the investors we bring into those companies. We have raised over $80 million in early stage funding for our clients (in Seed, Series A and Series B rounds) and delivered realized returns, so far, over $500 million—a realized return to date of over 6X—to the investors who provided that early stage capital, with a number of the companies still driving towards an exit that may increase that figure. Realized (cash-on-cash) internal rates of return for a hypothetical investor who participated in each round of financing offered by WG&A to date exceeds 65% annually.

Wellington Partners is a venture capital firm based in Munich, Germany, with an additional office in Zurich, Switzerland. The firm specializes in early-stage and growth capital investments in the Technology and Life Sciences sector. The firm has approximately €800M AUM and is currently investing out of a €100M fund for Life Science companies. Depending on the stage of the company, the firm can allocate up to €10M over the life of the investment. The firm can also lead or co-lead financing rounds of up to €30M or higher with syndicates. The firm focuses on European companies but will consider US-based companies with activities in Europe. The firm is actively seeking new investment opportunities.

Western Oncolytics is developing a novel immunotherapy to treat a wide range of solid tumors.  Our therapy is an oncolytic vector with multiple therapeutic transgenes that both stimulate the immune system and remove local tumor immune inhibition.  The vector is engineered to avoid the immune system itself, thus overcoming a major drawback in competing designs.  It is the only therapy in the world with these leading attributes.  Western Oncolytics' therapy works in combination with other treatments, e.g. checkpoint inhibitors, and is capable of systemic (intravenous) delivery. 

Our team comprises the leading scientists, clinicians, and regulatory experts within our field, including entrepreneurs who successfully exited companies with earlier technologies.  In comparison animal testing measuring tumor growth and survival, our therapy performed far better than earlier, clinically-proven oncolytic therapies.

Western Oncolytics is currently raising investment to complete preclinical development and a planned clinical trial. 

WuXi Venture Fund is the corporate venture arm of WuXi AppTec, a multinational CRO based in Shanghai China with multiple offices across China and the United States. The fund makes equity investments into technology and life science companies to enhance or leverage WuXi AppTec's platform capabilities. The investment size will be varied based on a case-by-case basis. The firm invests in life science companies across the globe with an emphasis in China and the US.

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.

Xeris is a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company developing patient-friendly injectable drugs for various indications with an initial focus on diabetes. The current paradigm for many injectable drugs is to design formulations for delivery in water-based systems.  However, the presence of water is problematic because it actively degrades many molecules often preventing drug products from being packaged for use as a “ready-to-use” solution.  Xeris' patented and patent-pending XeriSol™ and XeriJect™ formulation technologies are transformative in their elimination of water. By replacing water with non-water, bio-compatible carriers already used in other FDA-approved drugs, Xeris solves a number of problems adding significant value to existing injectable drugs and to new drugs in development.  This technology is already being validated with the development of a non-aqueous glucagon formulation that has shown 24 months of room-temperature stability in solution and very positive safety and efficacy in a Phase 2 clinical study. While this product and other glucagon products are being developed and $20M has been raised to support this development, Xeris is seeking to spinoff its earlier stage non-glucagon assets and obtain funding (both equity and non-dilutive) to support these projects.  More specifically, these projects include the development of a non-aqueous, auto-injectable diazepam to replace the current diazepam rectal gel for treatment of epileptic seizures and a non-aqueous, intradermal auto-injectable epinephrine to replace the current, antiquated EpiPen.