Sunil Shah
Partner 
Prashant Shah
Partner 

Omnes Capital France

Comprising 10 investment professionals, Omnes Capital’s venture capital team acquires minority stakes in young companies with high growth potential. Its main areas of interest are financing innovative business ventures in the information technology and life sciences sectors (drug development, diagnostics, medical devices, bioproduction).

For 12 years, Omnes Capital has managed FCPI mutual funds (French regulated mutual funds investing in innovative companies).

Bruno Montanari
Director 

OMRF Technology Ventures

Manu Nair
Vice President 

ORIG3N United States

ORIG3N is a biotech company based in Boston, MA. The scientific mission is to deliver a disease-modeling platform targeting rare genetically inherited diseases. By advancing screening projects using iPSC-derived differentiated cells and rapidly delivering the resulting data to inform therapeutic decisions, ORIG3N will replace trial & error guess work of treating disease and enable longer, healthier lives. 

Website:
www.orig3n.com
Biotech Subsector
Medtech Subsector
Technology Overview
ORIG3N specializes in the generation of patient specific iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, neurons, and hepatocytes. We have also built a unique iPSCs bank, called Life Capsule, with fully consented samples from patients with various neurodegenerative and cardiac diseases. Utilizing the diverse patient population from Life Capsule, we are able to provide patient and disease specific cell models.
Management Team Highlights
Successful repeat entrepreneurs, the founding team has 60+ years of experience in life science. Robin Smith, the CEO has 3 prior successful exits - the most recent two were VC backed and both sold to publicly traded companies; provided 24:1 return and 74%IRR to prior investors.
James Lovgren
James Lovgren
LinkedIn logo CBO 
Robin Smith
CEO 

ORIGIMM Biotechnology Austria

ORIGIMM is a young, ambitious Austrian biotech company striving to become a market leader in the treatment of acute and chronic infectious diseases, and dermatological conditions associated with various pathogens.

ORIGIMM is developing the worldwide first therapeutic vaccine for treatment of acne vulgaris; the disease with enormous market potential, afflicting 85% of teenagers and more than 20% of adults below 40 years of age.

Using its proprietary ProVaDis® technology platform ORIGIMM overcomes the challenges in vaccine and immune therapy development by early focus on protective efficacy of antigens in the context of human disease. This translates into a rapid selection of best, most protective candidates with a significantly improved success in clinical trials. ProVaDis platform enables ORIGIMM to rapidly build its product portfolio in many other lucrative areas.

Website:
www.origimm.com
Year Founded
2014 (Seed phase/LLC), 2012 (pre-Seed,o.p.)
Biotech Subsector
Biotech Phase of Development
Technology Overview
Proprietary functional immunologic screening platform which enables rapid and reliable identification of best antigens and vaccine or mAb candidates.
Alliance & Collaborations
Clinicians and scientific KOLs. Initiation stage (pharmaceutical companies).
Supporting Metrics or Evidence
Proof of principle completed; priority patent application submitted and approved, high industrial interest
Current Financing Needs
$1.5 M
Current Timeline
Acne vaccine clinical phase start (2017). Vaccine candidate antigens against second indication selected (2017).
Current Investors
No private investors yet. Financed by the founders and public funds.
IP Status
Technology patent priority date 2014 (2015). Acne vaccine antigens patent pending (Q1/2015).
Recent Milestones
Technology POC completed. Acne vaccine candidates identified. Successful fund raising from several public research institutions supporting high technology development.
Management Team Highlights
Sanya SELAK, PhD – Founder, inventor and CEO. 20+ years of international scientific and industrial experience in antigen discovery, validation and immunology. Author of many publications, recipient of many scientific and funding awards and inventor on several patents. Tamás BERKE MD, MSc – Co-founder and COO. Physician, trained in pediatric infectious diseases, molecular virology, and a biotech professional with 20+ years of scientific and industry experience in project management during all stages of pre-clinical and clinical vaccine development. Thomas FISCHER MBA – CFO. Serial entrepreneur since his university degree 25 years ago. Thomas has dedicated know-how and experience in strategy building, fundraising, business and corporate development, finance and administrative affairs.
Dr Sanya Selak
Dr Sanya Selak
LinkedIn logo CEO 

Orphagen Pharmaceuticals United States

Orphagen’s focus is small molecule discovery at novel drug targets. We create programs leading to first-in-class drugs. Our goal is to partner these with development stage pharmaceutical companies.

We have been first mover in creating three discovery programs for novel targets, including one program that initiated Phase 1 clinical trials with a strategic partner (JT Pharma) in 2013 for autoimmune disease.

We work with novel drug targets from a very productive target class, the nuclear receptors.

Our work has so far been funded by $15 M in federal grants and partnership revenue. Orphagen is in the process of raising equity funding to accelerate current programs.

Orphagen’s lead internal program is for retinitis pigmentosa, the major form of hereditary blindness. Closely following are antagonists to SF-1, a promising target for treatment of Cushing’s syndrome, a life-threatening endocrine disorder, and two cancers with an endocrine connection: prostate cancer and adrenocortical cancer. New target screening may lead to first-in-class programs for glioblastoma, sickle cell anemia, and cancer immunotherapy.

Website:
www.orphagen.com
Year Founded
2000
Biotech Subsector
Biotech Phase of Development
Technology Overview
Orphagen targets unexplored or “orphan” nuclear receptors (NRs), members of a receptor family that includes targets for major breast and prostate cancer drugs and for anti-inflammatory glucocorticoids. Approximately half of the 48 known NRs are targets for drugs on the market or new compounds approaching FDA approval. These marketed drugs generate in excess of $10 billion in annual U.S. sales alone. The remaining nuclear receptors, the orphans, have potential for design of first-in-class drugs. Orphagen has proprietary methodology, experience and knowhow for identifying drug-like small molecules that turn these receptors on and off. Orphagen’s work with these orphans is based on close relationships with academic laboratories.
Alliance & Collaborations
In 2003-6, Orphagen developed a first-in-class drug discovery program for ROR-gamma, a new target for autoimmune diseases such as psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis and steroid-resistant asthma. Orphagen licensed its discovery-phase ROR-gamma program to JT Pharma in 2008. In 2013, JT Pharma initiated the first Phase 1 clinical trial for this target. BMS, Merck, Pfizer, Janssen, and Amgen also started biotech partnerships for the same target, but not until 2 to 5 years after JT-Pharma and Orphagen. Orphagen has demonstrated ability as a first mover for novel drug targets.
Supporting Metrics or Evidence
Approximately 50% of all industry partnership deals are done early, at a preclinical stage. Upfront payments for first-in-class drugs can reach $10-15 M and have grown substantially in the last 15 years. Combined later milestones are greater: $100 M to $300 M. First-in-class programs, such as Orphagen’s, are likely candidates for accelerated approval by the FDA, which markedly increases their potential for appreciated value. Orphagen plans to partner its discovery and development programs one by one as they mature. Partnership revenue will be used to expand R&D in Orphagen’s discovery pipeline and, when sufficient, to return capital to investors.
Current Financing Needs
$3 M to accelerate the Orphagen program for retinitis pigmentosa and to support a backup program (SF-1). Orphagen continues to receive significant non-dilutive funding from its ongoing partnership, from grants, and from sale of non-proprietary assay services.
Current Timeline
Orphagen expects to have advanced preclinical proof-of-principle data for retinitis pigmentosa and to execute a value-generating partnership for this indication in 2016. This is Orphagen’s most advanced internal program. Additional lead stage partnerships are anticipated in 2017 and beyond. Orphagen is also exploring revenue-generating partnerships in 2015-2016 for new target screening.
Current Investors
Friends and family, only. Orphagen has a single class of stock, Common stock.
IP Status
Orphagen has filed broad use patents for all ligands to two of its major targets where it has been the first to identify small molecule agonists or antagonists. Its screening technology and lead compounds, which are new chemical entities, are maintained as trade secrets.
Recent Milestones
2010-14 Phase 1 SBIRs for: (i) prostate cancer; (ii) endometriosis; (iii) glioblastoma; (iv) retinitis pigmentosa (RP); and (v) Cushing’s syndrome. 2013 File broad use provisional patent application on novel target for RP. 2013 JT Pharma starts Phase 1 clinical trial based on Orphagen strategic partnership. 2014 Structural biology collaboration for SF-1 with pharmaceutical partner. 2014 Initial proof-of-principle for treatment of RP in an animal model of disease. Identification of target co-crystal structure.
Management Team Highlights
Scott Thacher, Ph.D. Founder, CEO and CSO. Investigator for 15 SBIR grants to Orphagen. Concluded Orphagen’s licensing deal with Japan Tobacco. Previous: Investigator at Allergan. Co-founder: Io Therapeutics. Judy Blakemore. Director Business Development. Former interim COO at Onyx. Business development and transactional advisor for small to mid-size biotechnology companies since 1993. Paul Crowe, Ph.D. Director of Biology, Former Senior Director Pharmacology at Neurocrine. Ruo Steensma, Ph.D. Director of Chemistry, Former Director at Structural Genomix.
Dr Scott Thacher
LinkedIn logo CEO 
BIO

Scott Thacher, Ph.D., CEO and Director, founded Orphagen in 2001.  He has 30 years of experience in life sciences research and pharmaceutical R&D and led Orphagen to its first partnership in 2008. Prior to founding Orphagen, Scott directed programs in acne, psoriasis, hyperlipidemia, and diabetes at Allergan. Scott was previously on the biochemistry faculty at the Texas A&M College of Medicine (1986-1993) and was a Staff Fellow at the NIH. He holds a Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University and a B.S. in physics (Stanford).

Outborder Partners

Sergio Agudo
Partner