Christopher Hall with Jerel Davis, Luc Marengere, Fang Ni, Jennifer Hamilton, Brian Underdown
Apart from it being a week filled with Grand Prix fever here in Montreal, it was also a big week for those in the local life science community who participated in or attended our second KNOCK OUT event at the Hyatt Regency hotel in downtown Montreal. This event premiered at BioContact 2013 in Quebec city, and was a huge success, but for the second edition it was decided to bring the event closer to home which made it more accessible to the local scientific, biopharma and venture capital communities.
In fact, the event was significantly expanded upon this year, whereby AmorChem collaborated with Lumira Capital to host the event, and we held both KNOCK OUT and KNOCK IN events side by side with the presentation of key portfolio companies funded by Lumira. This offered a useful juxtaposition between current academic researchers vying for the big prize at KNOCK OUT, alongside more fully evolved science that either previously received AmorChem support (KNOCK IN), or had been founded into full-blown biotech companies by the team at Lumira.
I found this to be a very interesting exercise in "compare and contrast", with perhaps the most significant impact being on those early stage researchers who got some very valuable education in what it takes to go from interesting academic science data, to attracting seed financing from a life science VC company such as AmorChem, and then what needs to be achieved if one actually wants to go the distance and turn some interesting basic science into a full-blown biotech company.
The bottom line of KNOCK OUT is that academic researchers come in cold with no slides to lean on or fall back on, and they have mere minutes to present a project opportunity to our panel of heavyweights, who pick at them like feral hogs to see who is left standing at the end. The prize is of course the $500,000 financing on offer from AmorChem, but there is something for everyone, because all get priceless advice on what is missing to be the winner, and researchers can build on that for next time!
KNOCK IN involves participants who have more fully evolved projects that have been supported by AmorChem funding, and these PIs are allowed some slides to tell their story in a few minutes and then face the rabid dogpack of industry veterans who tell them what big pharma would need to see to consider investing in their laboratory or in-licensing their technology. It can be a daunting prospect, but our fearless PIs faced the panel with aplomb and took the comments (both positive and negative) with experience and humility.
The bottom line of KNOCK OUT is that academic researchers come in cold with no slides to lean on or fall back on, and they have mere minutes to present a project opportunity to our panel of heavyweights, who pick at them like feral hogs to see who is left standing at the end. The prize is of course the $500,000 financing on offer from AmorChem, but there is something for everyone, because all get priceless advice on what is missing to be the winner, and researchers can build on that for next time!
KNOCK IN involves participants who have more fully evolved projects that have been supported by AmorChem funding, and these PIs are allowed some slides to tell their story in a few minutes and then face the rabid dogpack of industry veterans who tell them what big pharma would need to see to consider investing in their laboratory or in-licensing their technology. It can be a daunting prospect, but our fearless PIs faced the panel with aplomb and took the comments (both positive and negative) with experience and humility.
The realities of the current life science and drug development scenario were not ignored by our tough team of industry heavyweights who handled both the KNOCK IN (photo at top) and KNOCK OUT (photo below) events, and they definitely exercised their right to hand out some tough love when critiquing the participants - but it was clearly underlined with a keen desire to help individuals realise the potential in their projects so that they might proceed to the next level. Even for a more mature project, the input from our panel can clearly be an eye-opener and bring feet firmly back to ground, when they dispense wisdom as to the likelihood of attracting a partner at that stage - but it is incredible exposure for the PIs involved, who get the luxury of serious input from such esteemed personalities in the business - for free!
Rick Lesniewski, Aled Edwards, John Gillard, Lloyd Segal and Marie-Eve Cote
Something which definitely got my attention was a sentiment expressed by essentially all of our KNOCK OUT presenters when explaining what was needed to take things further, which came in the form of -
"Why we need AmorChem is because......"
This is in effect what we have been saying in mirror image for a while now, in terms of the ecosystem clearly having a need for our type of early stage seed financing, which is emphasized not only by our expanding portfolio but also by an increasing level of interest towards us from the academic community. We have not sensed any drying-up of opportunity in the field, and rather have had to turn down various new projects being offered to us simply due to our need for a new financing round at AmorChem.
In fact, given that we have vested our funds quite fully in our first round, we are in the process of raising awareness of this continuing need and how that translates into the necessity for our own need for refinancing. To hear individual PIs stating in public why they need AmorChem resonates strongly with us, but hopefully it also does with the various scientific players, pharmaceutical companies, venture capital and institutional investors, as well as governmental stakeholders, who were listening.
Quebec life science is alive and well, and this is a time to expand on what has been rebuilt and exploit the considerable opportunity that exists in the labs of various entrepreneurially minded life science researchers. AmorChem exists to help some of those researchers get from very fundamental research into an early stage development pipeline that is increasingly garnering attention from big pharma. This fits quite perfectly with the current trend in pharma to reach further backwards into academia for new drug development candidates for their own pipelines.
The numerous requests for invites and attendance on the day itself represent a solid underlining of the need/demand for our presence in the local ecosystem, and we think that the demand for seed financing is growing steadily as word of AmorChem has spread and academic scientists become more familiar with (and perhaps less wary of!) our model. We are extremely proud of what we have achieved with a certain level of funding thus far, and we are more excited than ever with the idea of expanding our operations with a second new round of financing.
Unquestionably, the success of our AmorChem-Lumira event this week is testament to our impact to date in the local ecosystem, as well as shining a bright light on future possibilities moving forward. The various heavyweights on our panels, as well as those present in the audience, indicates the core support and belief we collectively have from the industry in general, and we are only getting started. For now, it's official - it was a total knock out!
PS Last but by no means least, the event was moderated by Christopher Hall, who was completely hilarious while rather brilliantly handling our gang of panelists and presenters who were talking about things that he had trouble pronouncing never mind understanding! He did a great job of entertaining the audience while simultaneously easing the tension on the various KNOCK OUT competitors, and his humour was thoroughly enjoyed by apparently one and all - including our very generous sponsors!
The numerous requests for invites and attendance on the day itself represent a solid underlining of the need/demand for our presence in the local ecosystem, and we think that the demand for seed financing is growing steadily as word of AmorChem has spread and academic scientists become more familiar with (and perhaps less wary of!) our model. We are extremely proud of what we have achieved with a certain level of funding thus far, and we are more excited than ever with the idea of expanding our operations with a second new round of financing.
Unquestionably, the success of our AmorChem-Lumira event this week is testament to our impact to date in the local ecosystem, as well as shining a bright light on future possibilities moving forward. The various heavyweights on our panels, as well as those present in the audience, indicates the core support and belief we collectively have from the industry in general, and we are only getting started. For now, it's official - it was a total knock out!
PS Last but by no means least, the event was moderated by Christopher Hall, who was completely hilarious while rather brilliantly handling our gang of panelists and presenters who were talking about things that he had trouble pronouncing never mind understanding! He did a great job of entertaining the audience while simultaneously easing the tension on the various KNOCK OUT competitors, and his humour was thoroughly enjoyed by apparently one and all - including our very generous sponsors!
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