Five drug discovery companies have entered the BioInnovation Institute’s (BII) Venture Lab acceleration programme for early-stage companies as part of a cohort of ten new members.
The 12-month Venture Lab programme is designed to support start-up companies with business acceleration, scientific, and team development, and provides a founder-friendly convertible loan of €500,000 plus access to labs and offices at the BII in Copenhagen.
In becoming a part of the Venture Lab programme, the early-stage companies also get an exclusive opportunity to apply for €1.4 million in follow-up funding through BII’s Venture House program.
The new life science companies BII has accepted into the Venture Lab acceleration program are:
- AIDA Oncology works to select the best cancer drug for each patient, using the RNA expression pattern of their tumour and machine learning.
- Alba Health is on a mission to reduce chronic disease risks from childhood, leveraging data science and the latest microbiome science.
- Dawn Bio is a drug discovery platform based on human embryo models for drug development for women’s reproductive health.
- METSYSTEM’s unique technology is designed to predict cancer metastasis and determine the optimal chemotherapy to treat it preventively.
- Amplify Therapeutics: Disease-modifying therapies for Gaucher disease and genetic subgroups of Parkinson’s disease.
Supporting innovative science
Bobby Soni, Chief Business Officer at BioInnovation Institute, said: “BII’s mission is to create products for the welfare of people and society, and we believe that BII’s support of the innovative science in this Venture Lab cohort will deliver on that promise.”
Each start-up will be supported in undertaking the necessary steps to reach initial proof-of-concept, to make a business plan and to set up a team. Assisted by a dedicated scientific advisor, a leadership coach and a BII business development expert, the new ventures will be guided in developing a detailed milestone plan and will be assisted in overcoming the challenges of growing a business.
Since its inception in 2018, BII has supported 80 start-ups and projects with €65 million alongside the venture capital, industry and business expertise it provides to help them accelerate to the next level. In total, BII’s start-ups have raised over €333 million in external funding from both local and international investors. Recent company successes include Adcendo, Stipe Therapeutics, Twelve Bio, Octarine Bio, and Cirqle Biomedical.
