Epeius Biotechnologies was born out of inspiration, compassion, and invention. The company has created the first broad-spectrum, tumor-targeted, bio-compatible, systemically-injectable genetic medicine for cancer. Called Rexin-G, the anti-cancer agent is precise, selective, and extremely effective. Thus far, Rexin-G is commercially available in the Philippines. In Japan, where Rexin-G was administered to 35 patients, 75% experienced long term benefit. In the U.S. Rexin-G has received Orphan Drug designation for three clinical indications, as well as FDA Fast Track status. Recent studies have shown clinical remissions in chemotherapy-resistant sarcomas, prostatic cancer, malignant melanoma, and pancreatic cancer using Rexin-G as stand-alone therapy.

The Wellcome Trust's £91 million Seeding Drug Discovery initiative was launched in 2006 to develop drug-like small molecules that will be the springboard for further research and development by the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry.

Two projects funded under the initiative, aimed at identifying inhibitors of BRAF and 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (11β-HSD1), have now come to fruition and produced preclinical drug candidates with supportive data and profiles that make them attractive for development into effective new therapies.

The Wellcome Trust is now seeking commercial partners to take these candidates forward through clinical trials and towards market.

Scil Proteins is a privately held biotech company active in the area of protein therapeutics. The company's technological basis is the proprietary Affilin® protein therapeutics platform. From highly complex libraries, Affilin® therapeutics are screened and selected for binding disease-related targets with high affinity and selectivity. A specific strength of Scil Proteins is to combine elevated capabilities and cutting-edge techniques in drug discovery with strong expertise in the contract biomanufacturing field. This includes full process development and GMP production of recombinant proteins in microbial systems.

Armed with a promising antibody-based vaccine against ovarian cancer, Menarini Group, a privately held fully integrated pharmaceutical company headquartered in Florence, Italy, is poised to enter the US market for the first time and has ambitions to become a major player in the biologicals field.

Bavarian Nordic (Kvistgård, Denmark) is a leading European industrial biotechnology company that develops and produces novel vaccines for the treatment and prevention of life-threatening diseases with a large unmet medical need.

Best known for its multi-million dollar agreements to supply the U.S. Government with a national stockpile of third-generation smallpox vaccines, Bavarian Nordic is also moving ahead swiftly with novel cancer and infectious diseases vaccines.

Plexxikon's PLX4032 — A New Personalized Medicine for Cancer Treatment — PLX4032 is a highly selective BRAF inhibitor that targets and destroys cancer cells harboring a specific cancer-causing mutation. Encouraging data from a Phase 1 extension study in mutation-positive metastatic melanoma patients showed that tumor shrinkage was observed in 70% of patients. Plexxikon, with partner Roche, has accelerated development for potential registration in melanoma and is conducting a Phase 2 pivotal trial with plans for a Phase 3 trial by the end of 2009.

Pergamum focuses on the dermatology and wound healing markets. The company has four main projects — three of which are in clinical development. All offer first-in-class potential in markets with significant unmet medical needs. Pergamum is a Karolinska Development company.

Bioyong, a biotechnology services company, is a manifestation of the Chinese government's desire to bridge the gap between academic research and industrial application. While advancing proprietary diagnostic and cloning technologies, Bioyong provides access to state-of-the-art genomics, proteomics and metabolomics services to the academic research community.

BioFocus, headquartered near Cambridge in the UK, is a vibrant and cutting-edge contract research organization supplying drug discovery products and services from target to candidate. It employs 250 people and has research facilities in the UK, the US, the Netherlands and Switzerland, and sales offices in Tokyo and Singapore. BioFocus was founded in 1997 and acquired by Galapagos in 2005, and is now the biotechnology company's service division.

Pharmidex delivers world-leading CNS and ADMET solutions to support preclinical drug discovery and development in CNS and other disease areas.

PharmaLegacy is a new company postured to play a progressive role in China's fast-growing pharmaceutical contract resource industry.

InvivoSciences (IVS) have combined three-dimensional (3D) human-cell cultures with high-throughput screening to provide a powerful system for addressing questions about toxicity, therapeutic benefit and even genetic variation. The technology developed by the founders can best be described as high-throughput physiology. By quantifying the body's response to biologic therapies, this company takes some of the guess-work out of drug development.

In a world where collaboration has become the key to drug discovery and development, Merck & Co., Inc., Whitehouse Station, NJ, stands out as an exceptionally committed partner to biotechs, venture capitalists, and academic researchers. One example is odanacatib, a candidate osteoporosis drug now in phase III, which Merck has been developing with Celera and its predecessors since 1996.

Crucell N.V.'s platform technologies are designed to speed up and simplify the development of antibodies, proteins and vaccines. As well as using them in-house to create innovative vaccines and therapeutics, Crucell provides access to its technologies, including its high-yielding human cell line technology PER.C6®, to biopharma companies, academic institutions, CMOs and CROs through flexible licensing agreements.

GSK increases its hunt for early stage biotech companies. We are looking for innovation wherever it may originate. Learn more on www.ceedd.com.

The board wants answers. What is our product/candidate worth for the China market? How do we approach market entry and what would the product lifecycle look like? Executives seeking to size the China opportunity or craft a market entry/market roll-out plan in China need to comprehend a variety of basic, China-specific issues that have significant impact on strategy and resource allocation. Here GBI presents key lessons drawn from client work over the past several years to help executives avoid pitfalls and create key question lists when looking at China from a commercial perspective.

HKSTP provides innovative and technology driven infrastructure and support facilities which include market focused clustered laboratory services enabling Hong Kong industries and services to be more competitive; it provides fullservice incubation programmes for technology and design startups: IncuTech, IncuBio and IncuDesign, and fosters partnerships and collaboration between industry and universities/applied research institutes through consulting, training and research programmes. HKSTP also offers advanced facilities and support services for high technology companies.

Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of sanofi-aventis Group, is seeking partners who will share the company's pursuit of innovation and drive for excellence. Our diverse culture and geography allow us to collaborate effectively with a broad array of partners around the world. We are not only at the forefront of conquering newly targeted diseases, but also leading the way in expanding immunization across all age groups, including adolescents and the elderly. This leadership has translated into outstanding success in the industry, and our company has experienced a recent period of unprecedented growth.

BioonGroup, established since 2001 in China, as the leading service organization, provide latest news, instruments and reagents information, professional consulting and marketing survey and analysis based on life sciences and medicine. The divisions of BioonGroup include six websites and three subbrands, e.g. BIOON, MedSci and BioInsight. Our mission is that building a rapid and convenient platform to link supplies to pharmaceutical, biotech, and research customers. Meanwhile, over 1.5 million registered and permission users' database could help to delivery enterprises news and products information to them via Electronic Direct Mail (EDM) or Direct Mail (DM). All these work aim to accelerate China biotech industry development.

The Chinese premier provider of innovative drug discovery and development solutions ShanghaiBio is providing the following services: Genomics, Pharmacogenomics, Biomarker, Translational Medicine Tissue bank, Bio bank and central lab services for clinical trial samples, animal models and DMPK for preclinical studies.

Wuhan Biolake Science Park is on its way to becoming a powerhouse of innovation and commercialization for the Chinese Bio-industry.

Avesthagen Limited, India's leading integrated systems biology platform company, is poised to make the transition from a research and development business to a product company. It is in position to make a global impression in the area of bioAgriculture, bioNutrition and biomarker markets and to provide a gateway into the Indian market for US and European companies. The company is now ready to take its product portfolio to the market in India and, with its partners, to the rest of the world.

Syngene, a subsidiary of Biocon Ltd, India's largest biotech company, has grown from 7 scientists in 1994 to more than 1250 employees spread across over a million square feet of infrastructure in 10 acres of area at Biocon Park, Bangalore and is generating revenues of more than $50 million.

TCG Lifesciences' consistent delivery of high value and complex medicinal chemistry solutions has made it a partner of choice. To date, TCG Lifesciences has established collaborations with 15 of the leading 20 global biopharmaceutical companies.

Boehringer Ingelheim was manufacturing biotech products even before the Hungarian Engineer Károly (Karl) Ereky coined the term biotechnology (circa 1914). As early as 1895, the company's founder, Albert Boehringer, pioneered the use of bacteria to produce lactic acid. Today, Boehringer Ingelheim is a research driven pharmaceutical company that is also the largest contract manufacturing organization for biopharmaceutical production.

PharmaTelevision is an online TV channel targeting the biopharma industry. It offers interviews, comment, analysis, discussion and news on all aspects of the sector. PharmaTelevision is part of PharmaVentures, which provides consultancy, advice and support in all aspects of deal making to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

Phylomer® libraries: the most structurally diverse libraries available for discovery of high quality peptide leads targeting protein interactions.

 

DBV Technologies (DBV) is a company focused on non-invasive epicutaneous drug delivery. Its patented technology platform VIASKIN^® uses electrostatic forces to deliver compounds non-invasively to the epidermis without disrupting the blood-skin barrier. VIASKIN^®; has a broad applicability across allergy diagnostics, specific immunotherapy, vaccine delivery and cosmaceuticals. DBV is currently seeking partners in these areas.

arGEN-X's SIMPLE Antibody™ platform generates an unparalleled functional diversity of human antibody leads which routinely exhibit gold-standard affinities, potencies and expression levels...

 

DesignMedix develops novel pharmaceutical products for the treatment and prevention of life- threatening infectious diseases using its proprietary approach to overcoming drug resistance.

BioQuanta's Science as a service platforms provide world class results applying Lean discovery processes within the translational research approach. We are committed to delivering the best by providing innovative and safer tools for maximal R&D efficiency.

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd is probably better known as one of the largest generic pharmaceutical companies in the world but it does have a growing interest in in-licensing medicines that can be used by specialist clinicians from both biotech and academic sources. Historically, it has sourced its innovative assets from within Israel but it is now looking to access innovative, pre-clinical programs from U.S. and European sources.

Biological drug development is an expensive process, and companies developing therapeutics look to save money at every stage. However, according to SynCo Bio Partners, investing in planning process development early in the drug development cycle could save money and time at a later stage, and could even mean the difference between marketing approval and rejection.

Formed as a spin-out company from Grupo Uriach's research and development unit in November 2006, Palau Pharma S.A. focuses on the development of innovative small molecule therapeutics from discovery to clinical proof-of-concept for the treatment of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases in areas of unmet medical need.

HUNT Biosciences is the commercial arm of the HUNT Databank, one of the world's most comprehensive population-based prospective health surveys and biobanks.

Novo Nordisk seeks partners to increase its promising, protein-based pipeline within diabetes, haemostasis and chronic inflammation. Novo Nordisk masters all aspects of bringing proteins from molecule to market, and employs more than 25,000 staff in 79 countries worldwide.

 

The Health Protection Agency's core business areas are research and development of vaccines against infectious diseases, process development and GMP manufacture of biologics. In addition, a wide range of support services are offered from biosafety, through GLP immunoassay testing to in vivo studies.

BTG in-licenses, develops and commercialises pharmaceuticals. Principally in the field of neuroscience but also in other areas. The company has a substantial and growing revenue stream of royalties from out licensed products and a broad, expanding internal pipeline of development programmes. This company is evolving towards growing a later stage pipeline, eventually aiming to take niche products to market. This will be funded by milestones and royalties from partnered programs, including two projects in Phase III and seven in Phase II.

Institut Pasteur acknowledges that the best performers in the Pharma Industry have shifted from focused collaborations with academia to more widely open research programs with centers of excellence.

We have gathered a special purpose team to define with each company the research collaborations needed to find solutions to knowledge deadlocks in product development programs.

Antisense Pharma focuses on the development of gene silencing therapies against highly malignant cancers. We identify and develop antisense drugs, which specifically down-regulate key cancer mediating proteins. Our lead compound AP 12009 is in advanced clinical development stage for high-grade glioma (Phase IIb completed) and other solid tumors and is available for worldwide partnering.

Open for Business - Imperial offers unique opportunities to enhance innovation in R&D through collaborative research, technology licensing and consulting - current partners include major healthcare, biotech and pharmaceutical companies in a wide range of deal-structures. Deal-making support is provided by the BioPharma Business Development team led by Dominique Kleyn.

UCL Business is the access point to the wealth of innovation and intellectual property emanating from UCL, and we offer a number of services to assist the technology transfer process, from consultancy through to collaborative research, IP licensing and the creation of spinout companies and joint ventures to maximise the commercial potential of new discoveries, materials and processes.

Affitech discovers and develops fully human antibody therapeutics for both partners, such as Roche and Peregrine, and its own pipeline with a primary focus in oncology. Headquartered in Oslo, Norway with business development in San Francisco, California, Affitech uses two proprietary discovery technologies - MBAS (molecule based) and CBAS(cell based). By discovering both antibody and target simultaneously from patient libraries CBAS shortens development times by up to two years.

Debiopharm is a financially independent drug development company based in Lausanne, Switzerland, that in-licenses promising therapeutic compounds, develops them globally and then out-licenses them for commercialization. By concentrating only on the development of products rather than on external investors and sales and marketing, Debiopharm has become a highly successful developer.

VIA Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a biotechnology company located in San Francisco, California, which is focused on the development of therapeutics for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. Its lead compound, VIA-2291, is currently in Phase II clinical trials in North America and Europe. It targets inflammation in the blood vessel, the underlying cause of cardiovascular disease.