I've been a little out of circulation in the last week or two due to various personal commitments, and among other my blog has suffered a temporary hiatus, but now on this sunny Saturday as we cross over into May, here I am again. While it may be May 1st tomorrow, we are still enduring generally low temperatures which is reflected in the total absence of any green on the trees by my windows, so here's hoping this will change, and soon!
It was a most interesting week at AmorChem given that we had an investment committee to discuss the various potential contenders in our upcoming KNOCK OUT™ competition, to be held on June 2nd at the Hyatt Regency Hotel as part of our annual event day alongside Lumira Capital. We are excited about the prospect of seeing some serious sparring between our contender researchers and our esteemed panel of industry heavyweights who will no doubt not only test their hypotheses, but perhaps try their patience as well - but all is fair in love and war - and knock out!
Additionally, we had our annual general meeting (AGM) this week, which took stock of us having reached the half-way stage (5 years) of our current AmorChem Fund, elaborating on what we have achieved thus far, and where we are going next. This second half of our first fund's life cycle will also see the closing of our second early stage fund, AmorChem II, and that is something else that we are extremely excited about.
A major new initiative that was launched at our recent AGM is a further commitment to particular projects that have reached a certain level of maturity, and which have not only maintained initial promise but have increased their commercial potential. We recognise that this handful of portfolio assets have come quite a distance already, and both need and merit an extra push at the top of the hill to get them over a game-changing value inflection point.
How are we going to do this? Well, given that the local ecosystem has recovered to a significant extent from the lows of the biotech graveyard years of 2008 to 2013 (generally speaking), and considering that investor interest has swung back to the biotech space once again, we intend to create company structures around our most mature projects and grow them inside the virtual walls of those companies. The idea is to further professionalise the ongoing developmental activities and management thereof, in order to increase the potential of raising funds and/or becoming a target for acquisition.
This process has begun and the first asset out the gate is our program focused on the targeting of the macrophage scavenger receptor, CD36, as it relates to both age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and atherosclerosis/cardiovascular disease. We have two separately funded projects in the CD36 program, one for each disease area, and given the exceptional progress in both cases, we made the decision to consolidate the assets and development-to-date into our very first newco - hence the birth of Mperia Thera!
This endeavour will be spearheaded by local life science serial entrepreneur Maxime Ranger, who was chosen for his prior experience in such enterprises as well as for his deep connections within the local venture capital and institutional investor network. Mperia will continue to develop our CD36-targeting lead candidates moving forward, with a major deliverable being the syndication of a Series A finance round for the company, and/or closing a transaction with a larger biotech or pharma.
We believe that the timing is right for us to roll out our more mature assets into this newco format, and that such a move is aligned with a renewed desire in the local ecosystem to create new companies and grow the workforce in the biotech sector in Quebec. There is ample infrastructure in place already, and Quebec's preeminence as a biotechnology hub means that an extremely skilled pool of life science talent can be readily tapped into by new ventures.
There will be a lot more to say about Mperia soon enough, not least as the company will be formally announced at our upcoming KNOCK OUT™ event, in the form of a launch presentation that will update the community on the background, current status and future plans for the company. This will make our event day even more fun than usual, and we are fully motivated by the challenge of transferring certain other technologies on our list into newcos, similarly to Mperia.
In the meantime, the sun is still shining very brightly out there, so I think it's the perfect time for several laps of the track at Molson Stadium before settling in for dinner and two hours of fishing for king crab on the Bering Sea, courtesy of "Deadliest Catch" on Discovery. Yep, even the Saturday evening entertainment is biology related! :)
How are we going to do this? Well, given that the local ecosystem has recovered to a significant extent from the lows of the biotech graveyard years of 2008 to 2013 (generally speaking), and considering that investor interest has swung back to the biotech space once again, we intend to create company structures around our most mature projects and grow them inside the virtual walls of those companies. The idea is to further professionalise the ongoing developmental activities and management thereof, in order to increase the potential of raising funds and/or becoming a target for acquisition.
This process has begun and the first asset out the gate is our program focused on the targeting of the macrophage scavenger receptor, CD36, as it relates to both age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and atherosclerosis/cardiovascular disease. We have two separately funded projects in the CD36 program, one for each disease area, and given the exceptional progress in both cases, we made the decision to consolidate the assets and development-to-date into our very first newco - hence the birth of Mperia Thera!
This endeavour will be spearheaded by local life science serial entrepreneur Maxime Ranger, who was chosen for his prior experience in such enterprises as well as for his deep connections within the local venture capital and institutional investor network. Mperia will continue to develop our CD36-targeting lead candidates moving forward, with a major deliverable being the syndication of a Series A finance round for the company, and/or closing a transaction with a larger biotech or pharma.
We believe that the timing is right for us to roll out our more mature assets into this newco format, and that such a move is aligned with a renewed desire in the local ecosystem to create new companies and grow the workforce in the biotech sector in Quebec. There is ample infrastructure in place already, and Quebec's preeminence as a biotechnology hub means that an extremely skilled pool of life science talent can be readily tapped into by new ventures.
There will be a lot more to say about Mperia soon enough, not least as the company will be formally announced at our upcoming KNOCK OUT™ event, in the form of a launch presentation that will update the community on the background, current status and future plans for the company. This will make our event day even more fun than usual, and we are fully motivated by the challenge of transferring certain other technologies on our list into newcos, similarly to Mperia.
In the meantime, the sun is still shining very brightly out there, so I think it's the perfect time for several laps of the track at Molson Stadium before settling in for dinner and two hours of fishing for king crab on the Bering Sea, courtesy of "Deadliest Catch" on Discovery. Yep, even the Saturday evening entertainment is biology related! :)
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