Event Addresses Biotech Startup Challenges

The challenges biotech companies face when developing and launching new therapies, including process development, manufacturing, and regulatory compliance, while balancing resource and financial constraints, will be the focus of a Biotech Startup Summit hosted by MilliporeSigma on May 16, 2019, at the company’s Cambridge Innovation Center in Boston, MA.

The event, “Advancing Molecules to Market-Is Yours Next?”, will include presentations by three finalists for MilliporeSigma’s 6th Advance Biotech Grant Program in North America. The grant program provides process solution products and services and/or process development support to biotech companies with molecules in development.

The 2019 North America grant finalists, as reported by MilliporeSigma, include:

• Raft Pharmaceuticals, for an approach to treat chronic pain using a biologic to selectively inhibit neuroinflammation without affecting normal motor or sensory function.

• TechnoVax, for developing a virus-like particle platform that facilitates the development and production of a range of vaccines targeting the prevention of respiratory diseases, as well as hemorrhagic fevers, immunodeficiency, and cancers.

• Rubicon Biotechnology, for developing a therapeutic protein, Fv-Hsp72, designed to protect and salvage cells damaged from an acute event, such as traumatic brain injury.

The program also will feature a panel discussion on strategies for advancing molecules to market; topics include early stage funding, process development, tech transfer, new trends and therapies, FDA regulations, and the transition from a scientist to an entrepreneur. An expert panel from different sectors of the biotech community will participate in the discussion. The panelists are Mukesh Kumar, regulatory consultant and CEO, FDAMap.com; Johannes Fruehauf, president and CEO of Biolabs, executive director of LabCentral, and general partner of BioInnovation Capital; Sébastien Ribault, senior director, MilliporeSigma Global BioReliance, End to End Solutions; Jean Bender, vice president and principal consultant at Visterra; and Tom Ransohoff, managing director, BPTC Group, BDO. Rita Peters, editorial director of BioPharm International, will moderate the panel discussion.

Source: MilliporeSigma