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An international life science incubator in Copenhagen, Denmark
Start-ups
Start-ups
START-UPS: CREATION HOUSE
The Creation House program provides funding of up to EUR 1,3M (DKK 10M). As part of the program, your start-up team can relocate to BII in Copenhagen and will work intensively towards the primary objective of bringing the project to a stage to attract funding (e.g. series A) to support further development and/or growth.
During the time in the Creation House program, BII will provide the support needed for your team to succeed.
Meet the Creation House start-ups below. Click on the start-up to read more.
Ciana Therapeutics is a clinical development-stage company led by an experienced team developing new therapies for diabetic retinopathy (DR). DR is a serious condition that afflicts 30% of patients with diabetes and leads to vision loss and blindness. Ciana is a spin-out from Zealand Pharma A/S that originally developed their lead drug therapy, Danegaptide. Danegaptide has a proven safety profile in humans, strong efficacy in pre-clinical DR models and can uniquely address the need for more effective and earlier treatments in DR. Learn more about Ciana Therapeutics on www.cianatx.com
Lophora develops rapid acting drugs for treatment-resistant depression.
Lophora is developing an antidepressant with a novel mode of action that has the potential to work within days. The company has identified and patented a new class of proprietary ligands that has a similar pharmacological profile as psilocybin, which has shown promising clinical results in the treatment of depression. Lophora is currently focusing on Treatment-Resistant Depression, but clinical data suggests that the novel treatment paradigm will be applicable to the treatment of anxiety, PTSD and substance abuse.
Lophora was formerly part of the BII Business Acceleration Academy
Learn more about Lophora here
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Or read about them in these articles:
BAA alumni funded with DKK 10M in Creation House
Dedicated to improving life quality for millions of people suffering from diabetes, Pancryos is developing a next generation stem cell derived cell therapy PanINSULA. This is a stem cell-based cell therapy to replace the damaged insulin-producing beta cells that are mistakenly destroyed during the autoimmune disease type 1 diabetes.
Learn more about Pancryos here
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Or read about them in this article:
PokeAcell is developing personalized T cell therapies to late stage solid tumors. T cells are the elite soldiers of our immune system and have the capacity to create lasting response in solid tumor patients. PokeAcell’s ImmPACT technology mimic the natural stimulation of cancer specific T cells, outside the patients body, and create a strong, safe and simple T cell product for Melanoma and Merkel Cell Carcinoma. With PokeAcell’s insight to cancer antigens, the approach can be expanded to other cancers creating a new platform for T cell therapy.
Learn more about PokeAcell here
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Or read about them in this article:
Sundew, formed in 2018, is a Danish-Dutch start-up biological technology venture focused on developing a range of biology-based technology platforms that enable the development of effective, affordable, environmentally benign products targeted at aquatic pests and diseases. Sundew is headquartered in Copenhagen (www.sundew.bio).
Teitur Trophics is working on small peptides acting on the Sortilin family that is involved in neurogenerative diseases like Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
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Or read about them in this article:
Twelve Bio uses state-of-the-art techniques in structural biology to manipulate and improve the abilities of CRISPR-Cas12a to recognized and cleave specific DNA sequences. Our goal is to obtain new CRISPR-Cas12a variants that can be safely used in gene-editing for therapeutical purposes. Twelve Bio is the first spin-out company from the NNF Center of protein Research where we obtained the first “movie” on how Cas12a moves from the recognition to the cleavage of the specific DNA target.
Learn more about Twelve Bio here
Follow them on LinkedIn
Or read about them in this article:
Meet the start-ups: Twelve Bio
UNIKUM is working on pDC’s – uniquely transforming Immunotherapy.
Read more about UNIKUM in this news article: Immune Therapy Start-up Funded With 10 M DKK.
2N Pharma is developing a disease-modifying new drug for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and is building its case on 10 years of research led by Co-founder John Nieland. The participation in the Creation House program will allow 2N to optimise its lead molecules and take significant steps towards clinical testing. Read more on https://2npharma.com/
Learn more about 2N Pharma here
Bainan Biotech is developing a first-in-class bone-strengthening drug. The drug’s effect arises from boosting the body’s naturally occurring bone-strengthening response to a healthy meal. Not only nutrition and minerals in the food but also the body’s hormonal response to eating is very important for maintaining strong and healthy bones. Bainan Biotech’s drug stimulates the body’s bone-strengthening hormonal response to eating as a new way of treating osteoporosis.
Learn more about Bainan Biotech here
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START-UPS: Business Acceleration
Meet the business acceleration research projects and start-ups below. Each has been funding with up to 3.5 M DKK in funding to help bring science within therapeutics, bioindustrials or health tech out of the lab and into the market.
Click on the profile to read more.
BOOST cells (in vitro expanded mesenchymal stem cells) are developed to treat severe Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) or Brittle Bone Disease in children and unborn babies. OI is an inherited severely handicapping disease, that leads to e.g. multiple fractures, short body stature and pain.
BOOST Pharma believes that treating early before too much damage has occurred is beneficial. In an academic setting, they have previously treated four children and have demonstrated that the BOOST cells are safe and potentially effective. In an academic Horizon 2020-funded ongoing clinical phase I/II study, safety and efficacy in a larger patient group is investigated.
Learn more about BOOST Pharma here
Or read more about them in this article:
Meet the therapeutics start-up: BOOST Pharma
Making biobased production possible at any scale by self-selecting fermentations. Read more about Enduro Genetics.
A novel therapeutic approach for treatment of obesity.
Working on this is Professor Christoffer Clemmensen and his team from Copenhagen University.
Start-up company founded by Martin Blomberg Jensen and based on research from Rigshospitalet. It is a first in class treatment for male infertility.
Research project from The University of Copenhagen run by Professor Anders Miki Bojesen and his team. Working on a vaccine manufacturing technique for large-scale production of bacterial outer membrane vesicles (OMVs)
Research project from the University of Copenhagen run by Professor Thue W. Schwarts and his team. Working on antagonists for the Lactate Receptor GPR81/ HCAR1 for Treatment of Solid Tumours
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Kesmalea Therapeutics is a British start-up, founded by Harry Finch. They are working on accelerating the discovery of novel protein degraders and providing an alternative approach for therapeutics with ‘PROTAC-like’ actions.
Read more about their research here.
ALUMNI: CREATION HOUSE
Meet the Creation House alumni below and read the interview with of one of the first companies that joined BII in 2018: From Associate Professor to CSO with a series A investment
Ankrin Therapeutics is a biotech start-up developing first-in-class drugs for cancer treatment. Their novel and unique therapeutic strategies, founded on forefront high quality research in cancer biology, target essential protein-protein interactions required for error-free DNA damage repair.
Learn more about Ankrin Therapeutics here
Follow them on LinkedIn
Or read about them in this article:
Cirqle Biomedical has developed an innovative contraceptive for women, without the many side effects of hormonal birth control. This product makes cervical mucus temporarily impenetrable to sperm. The barrier is established by a molecule that strongly interacts with cervical mucus and thereby reinforce the mucus to make it impenetrable for sperm cells. Sperm cells are trapped in the cervical mucus and maintained in the vaginal cavity where the low pH environment of the vagina deactivates them.
Cirqle was formerly part of the BII Business Acceleration Academy, and the Creation House program.
Learn more about Cirqle Biomedical here
Follow them on LinkedIn
Or read about them in these articles:
Inprother is an immunotherapy company dedicated to developing the world’s first adaptive immune therapy capable of targeting immunosuppressive genes of ancient retroviruses that normally are dormant in the human genome. The retroviral genes are reactivated in cancer and essential for tumor development. InProTher’s proprietary combination of novel technologies is designed to break tolerance to this unique antigen family, thus providing broad anti-cancer efficacy.
InProTher was formerly part of the BII Business Acceleration Academy.
Learn more about InProTher here
Follow them on LinkedIn
Or read about them in these articles:
BII start-up attracts corporate profile as CEO
Catching up with three BAA alumni start-ups
Two start-ups accepted in the Creation House program
Kariya Pharmaceuticals is developing first-in-class disease modifying agents to treat neurodegenerative diseases.
Learn more about Kariya Pharmaceuticals here
Follow them on LinkedIn
Or read about them in thesse articles:
ALUMNI: BUSINESS ACCELERATION ACADEMY
Meet the Business Acceleration Academy alumni below. Click on the start-up to read more and learn more about our new acceleration program Venture Lab.
Bainan Biotech is developing a first-in-class bone-strengthening drug. The drug’s effect arises from boosting the body’s naturally occurring bone-strengthening response to a healthy meal. Not only nutrition and minerals in the food but also the body’s hormonal response to eating is very important for maintaining strong and healthy bones. Bainan Biotech’s drug stimulates the body’s bone-strengthening hormonal response to eating as a new way of treating osteoporosis.
Learn more about Bainan Biotech here
Follow them on LinkedIn
Fermbiotics is a company developing natural fermented seaweed and plant products that support gut health.
They produce fermented plant and seaweed products as food ingredients, dietary supplements and medical foods by combining prebiotics, probiotics and bioactive compounds. This has resulted in a new category of fermented food ingredients and dietary supplements for both humans and animals, which can stimulate a positive gut microbiome (gut microflora).
Learn more about FermBiotics here
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Or read about them in this article:
Heart View Medical works with high-speed three dimensional echocardiology, for improved accuracy of irregularities in the heart.
Currently there are limitations to existing imaging methods in their ability to rapidly record cardiac events (at physiologic speeds). In the case of 3D echo, CT and MRI, the problem is further confounded by the necessity to create images over multiple heartbeats where only portions of the image are obtained in a single heartbeat. Because of current slow imaging rates, it is likely that certain cardiac abnormalities remain undetectable.
Echocardiography would improve the understanding of arrhythmia development for electrophysiology procedures and shorten procedure time and minimize patient risk.
Learn more about Heart View Medical here
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Mycropt offers tailored solutions for biotech, biopharma and research companies that wants to improve their protein production or diversify their product portfolio.
They apply a unique platform technology to help customers enable the production of novel, difficult-to-express targets and enhance the yield of existing products.
Learn more about Mycropt here
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Or read about them in these articles:
atSpiro makes biotechnology research faster and more efficient by digitizing early stages of the strain screening pipeline – adding automatic control and collecting data at an unprecedented scale.
The current, industry-standard strain screening process consists of several stages. One of which relies on shaker flasks and cotton balls – this is a weak link in an otherwise highly-developed and technical operation. At this stage, hundreds of experiments run in parallel, and potentially valuable strains are lost due to error-based changes in their environments. atSpiro industry-disrupting product will enhance analysis of these strains to optimize the environments for future strains being screened.
Learn more about atSpiro here
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Or read about them in this article:
prOxi biotech develops a BACTOVAC platform, overcoming main barriers of traditional vaccine developing technologies allowing for new, highly needed vaccines to enter the market and fight multi-resistant bacteria.
Learn more about prOxi biotech here
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Or read about them in these articles:
Octarine harnesses synthetic biology to develop functionally superior cannabinoid and psilocybin derivatives.
Using their unique biosynthetic platform they engineer microorganisms to produce a range of natural and novel cannabinoid and psilocybin derived molecules with improved pharmacokinetic and therapeutic properties.
Learn more about Octarine here
Follow them on LinkedInOr read about them in this article:
Bifrost Biolabs makes biology easier by creating laboratory automation for the biotech industry, creating a novel high throughput sensor system that can give the user a high-quality biomass measurement to aid in the optimization of any fermentation process.
Learn more about Bifrost Biolabs here
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Or read about them in this article:
iBio tech advances diagnostic solutions and therapies for autoimmune diseases, aiming to benefit patients while creating a successful business.
Learn more about them here
Or read about them in this article:
MedicQuant’s vision is to enable rapid and local tests for anticoagulants at the point-of-care to benefit patients. Currently, there is no readily available solutions to address blood levels of the anticoagulants called Direct Oral Anticoagulants (DOACs) at the point-of-care. MedicQuant have developed a novel technology, chip and instrument that can detect DOACs, directly from whole blood within only 10 minutes. The elegant simplicity of our solution will provide a readily available test to use at individual departments at all hospitals.
Learn more about MedicQuant here
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Metabolyzer represents the next step in human gut microbiome analysis. We are developing a range of services that will provide precise metabolic insights on the basis of amplicon or shotgun metagenome sequencing data. Based on more than twenty years of research, our digital metabolism approach translates the microbial crosstalk on a molecular level enabling a mechanistic understanding of the processes underlying an individual’s response to pre-biotics and changes in diet. We are primarily targeting human gut microbiome businesses who want to make sure that they get the most of their data.
Learn more about Metabolyzer here
Or read about them in this article:
Twelve Bio uses state-of-the-art techniques in structural biology to manipulate and improve the abilities of CRISPR-Cas12a to recognized and cleave specific DNA sequences. Our goal is to obtain new CRISPR-Cas12a variants that can be safely used in gene-editing for therapeutical purposes. Twelve Bio is the first spin-out company from the NNF Center of protein Research where we obtained the first “movie” on how Cas12a moves from the recognition to the cleavage of the specific DNA target.
Learn more about Twelve Bio here
Follow them on LinkedIn
Or read about them in this article:
Meet the start-ups: Twelve Bio
Ward 24/7 is an early stage health tech company aiming to predict and prevent critical clinical events in hospital wards by transforming patient monitoring practice and technology. Based on 24/7, wireless vital sign monitoring, Ward 24/7 develop artificially intelligent algorithms that use machine learning to generate new medical knowledge.
The technology can help recognize clinical deterioration early enough to prevent unexpected and often fatal or very critical events such as stroke and sepsis.
Read more about them in this article:
SecondCircle, biotech: Secondcircle is transforming CO2 into business opportunities. The company is developing disruptive carbon capture and utilization technology (CCU) that converts CO2 into valuable products, including biochemicals and proteins. The solution is based on a novel approach for fixating CO2 using bacteria, which reduces the operating and establishment costs significantly. SecondCircle provides value to companies that are ready for a greener future.
Read more about them in this article:
Meet the bio-industrial start-up: SecondCircle
Fertilitypro, pharma: FertilityPro is developing a first-in-class therapy for male infertility. The company was founded in 2020 and based on more than ten years of research in the endocrine crosstalk between the skeleton and the reproductive system.
Infertility affects 15% of all couples globally, and despite that, a malefactor responsible in 40% of cases, we exclusively treat the woman for a male disease with hormonal and invasive therapy. Our discovery of the RANKL-signaling system in the human testis has opened a pathway for a new paradigm where male infertility can be treated by treating the males with a RANKL inhibitor.
FertilityPro is currently repurposing the use of RANKL-inhibitors as a treatment for male infertility based on the company’s second medical patent and a patent on companion diagnostics to select the men that will benefit from the treatment. FertilityPro provides solutions for building families.
Chromologics is a Danish biotech company developing fungal fermentation solutions for the production of novel, natural pigments. Using our proprietary fungal fermentation process, we can produce pigments cost-competitively in a sustainable manner compared to existing natural colors which are extracted in low yields from food sources. Our fungal strains are non-GMO and our pigments are compatible with most dietary needs, including kosher, halal, and vegan diets.
Read more about Chromologics here
Or in this article with co-founder Gerit Tolborg.
BOOST cells (in vitro expanded mesenchymal stem cells) are developed to treat severe Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) or Brittle Bone Disease in children and unborn babies. OI is an inherited severely handicapping disease, that leads to e.g. multiple fractures, short body stature and pain.
BOOST Pharma believes that treating early before too much damage has occurred is beneficial. In an academic setting, they have previously treated four children and have demonstrated that the BOOST cells are safe and potentially effective. In an academic Horizon 2020-funded ongoing clinical phase I/II study, safety and efficacy in a larger patient group is investigated.
Learn more about BOOST Pharma here
Or read more about them in this article:
Meet the therapeutics start-up: BOOST Pharma
RESIDENTS
BII houses resident companies that rent access to the lab and office space on market terms. Feel free to contact BII’s Lab Manager Bo Heinemann for inquiries about renting lab and office space at BioInnovation Institute.
Meet the BII resident companies below. Click on the start-up to read more.
Ankrin Therapeutics is a biotech start-up developing first-in-class drugs for cancer treatment. Their novel and unique therapeutic strategies, founded on forefront high quality research in cancer biology, target essential protein-protein interactions required for error-free DNA damage repair.
Learn more about Ankrin Therapeutics here
Follow them on LinkedIn
Or read about them in this article:
Azebiotics is a privately held Danish pharmaceutical company exclusively committed to discovery and development of novel antibiotics to treat multidrug-resistant infections.
The company was founded in 2019 based on the serendipitous discovery of a small molecule with antimicrobial effect and is located at the Bio Innovation Institute in Copenhagen. This discovery has subsequently been transformed into the finding of a completely new class of potent antibiotics against several MDR bacteria.
The company is currently exploring and developing this new class of antibiotics in collaboration with external CROs to meet the urgent medical need for new antibiotics.
Blue Cell Therapeutics (RT) is an innovative Danish company that seeks to create value for patients, partners, employees and investors by developing new stem/progenitor cell products and medical devices technologies for chronic diseases, to make Blue Cell therapy a global reference within regenerative medicine. RT’s vision is to introduce freshly isolated and cultured Blue Cell treatments as the gold standard in hospitals and clinics worldwide for the treatment of conditions such as erectile dysfunction, lymphedema and fistulas in Crohn’s disease.
Cirqle Biomedical has developed an innovative contraceptive for women, without the many side effects of hormonal birth control. This product makes cervical mucus temporarily impenetrable to sperm. The barrier is established by a molecule that strongly interacts with cervical mucus and thereby reinforce the mucus to make it impenetrable for sperm cells. Sperm cells are trapped in the cervical mucus and maintained in the vaginal cavity where the low pH environment of the vagina deactivates them.
Cirqle was formerly part of the BII Business Acceleration Academy, and the Creation House program.
Learn more about Cirqle Biomedical here
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Or read about them in these articles:
Three researchers from the Department of Biomedicine have founded their own company, Draupnir Bio, and set out to develop a new type of cholesterol-lowering medicine. With their knowledge of biochemistry, they could see that there was something the pharmaceutical industry had overlooked, and this opened for exciting opportunities.
“Our first results pointed in the right direction. We had the feeling that this could really end up being something big. When we applied for funding, we hardly dared write about it in funding applications because there were also representatives from the pharmaceutical companies among the assessors,” says Simon Glerup, who is associate professor at the Department of Biomedicine at Aarhus University.
The goal is to develop a pill that can prevent blood clots in the heart, and which is also priced so it is available to many people. By comparison, the current PCSK9-inhibitors are given as injections and cost almost DKK 30,000 a year per patient in Denmark.
Fermexa is a world class innovator in the field of pharmaceuticals based on polyphenols with a strong emphasis on flavonoids. Fermexa is creating a range of cutting-edge technologies for synthetic optimization of polyphenols, e.g. by fermentation as the company name implies. Fermexa is currently developing commercially scalable productions in close cooperation with global partners.
Hemab ApS is an emerging biotech company supported by Novo Holdings A/S with the aim of developing novel treatments for rare and underserved bleeding disorders. Based in Copenhagen, the company is led by a team of drug developers and scientists with deep expertise in haemophilia. Hemab has exclusive licences to state-of-the-art antibody technologies from both Novo Nordisk A/S and Genmab
Inprother is an immunotherapy company dedicated to developing the world’s first adaptive immune therapy capable of targeting immunosuppressive genes of ancient retroviruses that normally are dormant in the human genome. The retroviral genes are reactivated in cancer and essential for tumor development. InProTher’s proprietary combination of novel technologies is designed to break tolerance to this unique antigen family, thus providing broad anti-cancer efficacy.
InProTher was formerly part of the BII Business Acceleration Academy.
Learn more about InProTher here
Follow them on LinkedIn
Or read about them in these articles:
BII start-up attracts corporate profile as CEO
Catching up with three BAA alumni start-ups
Two start-ups accepted in the Creation House program
Kariya Pharmaceuticals is developing first-in-class disease modifying agents to treat neurodegenerative diseases.
Learn more about Kariya Pharmaceuticals here
Follow them on LinkedIn
Or read about them in thesse articles:
STipe Therapeutics focuses on harnessing the innate immune system to battle cancer. The company has developed first-in-class drugs targeting intracellular protein-protein interactions of the STING Pathway; a major driver of innate immunity, and regulator of tumorigenesis and autoimmune disorders. The company has identified and validated compounds that sensitizes the STING pathway and by this modulates the tumor microenvironment to support a potent anti-tumoral response.
In 2019, STipe Therapeutics raised a series A investments of 20M DKK. Read the story here: Creation House company raises series a invetment.
Read more about STipe Therapeutics here: stipetherapeutics.com
Adcendo ApS is a biotech company dedicated to developing new types of anti-cancer drugs. We focus on antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) directed at novel targets, that have been found to be overexpressed by several cancer forms, that are all characterized by a significant unmet need for novel treatment.
Learn more about Adcendo here
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Or read about them in these articles:
Bainan Biotech is developing a first-in-class bone-strengthening drug. The drug’s effect arises from boosting the body’s naturally occurring bone-strengthening response to a healthy meal. Not only nutrition and minerals in the food but also the body’s hormonal response to eating is very important for maintaining strong and healthy bones. Bainan Biotech’s drug stimulates the body’s bone-strengthening hormonal response to eating as a new way of treating osteoporosis.
Learn more about Bainan Biotech here
Follow them on LinkedIn
Finding a better way to help organ or stem cell transplant recipients recover from transplantation, by developing a cure for frequent CMV infections. Their drug candidate SYNx is a highly effective, potent, and fast-acting CMV-specific immunotoxin with the unique ability to kill lytic and latently infected cells. Its unique mechanism allows for stand-alone and combination therapy. Their technology will pave the way to better patient health and better transplant economy.
Learn more about Synklino here
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Or read about them in this article: