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Investors have come to academic institutions for ideas
Private companies, from pharmaceutical giants to small investment funds, in dire need of fresh ideas in the field of medicine and biotechnology. Confirmation of this has served as a meeting of representatives of Bayer and venture Primer Capital Fund with the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry which took place on April 15th which made by Young Scientists Council. Moreover the company did not have prior arrangement with each other.
The largest pharmaceutical company Bayer plans to expand the regional partnerships this year in the field of R&D (research and development programs). As part of this initiative, it is looking for projects among leading Russian universities and research institutes. Pharmaceutical giant are interesting drugs for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases and cancer, which in Russia suffer up to 65% of the population, as well as drugs against orphan (rare) diseases, drugs for ophthalmology and women's health.
Bayer's official website says that the development of new advanced products has a great importance for it, therefore as part of the projects the allocation of funds is not only what they do. If necessary, the company is ready to provide the infrastructure needful equipment, a library of chemical compounds and antibodies. If in the process of studying the project the company sees its considerable potential and an appropriate plan of Bayer, there is a possibility of forming of other more long-term and solid partnerships.
Primer Capital Venture Fund takes another position. It was founded a year ago and recently announced a set of Russian projects developing biotechnological and medical products. The company allocates 10 million rubles for the development, with the proviso that the cooperation with large venture funds and pharmaceutical companies will allow to attract third-party investments. The field of interest of fund includes the drugs on early (preclinical) development stage.
– We do not make tough conditions to the project, because developers have enough difficulties with excretion of the product on the market without it, – Elizabeth Rozhdestvenskaya says, the foundation’s COO. – Our goal is to bring the project to a stage where it can arouse the interest of big companies, such as Bayer. Thus, we are a connecting link, a bridge between developers and large organizations. Therefore, our arisen desire to hold a similar event in IBCh which appeared independently with Bayer can be considered very successful.
The Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry is a platform not only for basic research, a lot of work may find practical application there. However, the process of commercialization of the development requires significant financial and resource costs, which are difficult to overcome. Therefore, a lot of interested employees from different laboratories came to the meeting with the companies which took place in the Institute.
Children population and the younger generation of up to 20 years – this is a 30% of the population – suffers from allergies, which entails the anaphylactic shocks, asthma and other diseases. Elena Svirshchevskaya, PhD, Senior Research Associate in the Laboratory of cell interactions of Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, presented nano-vaccines, which treats the infected cells from the first type of allergy (grass pollen, plants and room dust) without harm to the immune system. Today during immunotherapy allergen is faced with a natural defense of the organism – immunoglobulin E, – which increases the time of therapy up to 5 years. Elena showed that if the allergen is packed in a special envelope, the vaccine will work much more efficiently. Now it is necessary to conduct pre-clinical trials.
Another project presented at the meeting is directly related to a cancer treatment. Anna Yagolovich, Ph.D., a researcher at the Laboratory of Protein Engineering of Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, together with colleagues developed drugs based on mutant versions of the cytokine TRAIL. These signaling molecules normally induce apoptosis (death) of tumor cells, however cancer cells often "catch" the enemy and survive. Anna assures that the created drug kills tumor cells in 2–5 times more effectively compared to wild-molecules (non-mutant) type. The plans of scientists include development schemes of the combined effects of the drug and various chemotherapeutic agents, and then pre-clinical, clinical trials and product conclusion to market in 5-6 years.
Other research presented at the meeting dealt with the development of new analgesics and anti-inflammatory agents, agents for the treatment of muscular dystonia and creating other important drugs.
– I think that the most of the submitted projects is very strong, – Elizabeth comments results of the meeting. – When you contact with the business incubators and accelerators you can find no more than 2% of really good projects. Here, in the Institute developments more standing of the initially high level of research. I hope that we will get good cooperation with many researchers.
The Primer Capital portfolio has no projects currently. However, the fund has already started to examine several proposals, one of which gave Alexander Vassilevski, the employee of IBCh.
Alexander and his colleagues developed a completely new class of analgesics. It is based on peptides from the venom of the spider, which were opened by a group of authors headed by academician Evgeny Grishin and named purotoxin. These peptides inhibit P2X-receptors, proteins that cause the perception of pain.
– We have successfully conducted preclinical studies of basic purotoksina, and now it is time to seek funding for further development, including clinical trials, – Alexander Vassilevski says, PhD, Head of the Molecular Instruments for Neurobiology Group of Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry. – We have established a company "Analgesics Future", which became a Skolkovo’s resident at the end of last year. One of the conditions for obtaining grant funding in Skolkovo is to attract investors. In the future we would like to create drugs for the treatment of various pain conditions: pain in osteoarthritis, painful bladder syndrome, the pain in inflammation of the trigeminal nerve and others in which the same pain receptors are involved.
At the end of the event, participants agreed that there should be more than one such meeting, and perhaps even make them regular. Investors will be able to have a personal live contact with their potential partners, and scientists will get a feedback and output the results of the laboratory work in pharmacies and clinics, where they will help real people.
april 20, 2016