By Gregory Mannix, Chief Conference Officer, Vice President International Business Development, LSN

Life Sciences Queensland has joined forces with LSN and the RESI conference to move the needle in the life sciences. They are sponsoring a delegation of constituent companies to participate in Digital RESI, as part of their active efforts to advance life sciences in their region.

Aptly titled Australia’s ‘Sunshine State’, Queensland has a globally competitive life sciences sector with significant financial investment and support from the state government to harness the region’s unique capabilities in biomedical R&D and infrastructure.

Government initiatives, like Advance Queensland, are aimed at harnessing the opportunities available in science and innovation to grow and diversify the state’s economy, create jobs, and secure a long-term financial future in the life sciences. As a result, Queensland welcomes a wide array of global start-ups, SMEs and larger companies, to establish business operations in the state and undertake research and clinical trials, by partnering with many world-class universities and research organisations.

Life Sciences Queensland (LSQ) is an industry-led peak body supporting Queensland’s broad life sciences industry. Representing more than 170 industry members, LSQ aims to influence public policy and grow industry businesses to create a dynamic, internationally competitive and sustainable life sciences sector in Queensland. LSQ members forge new frontiers in fields critical to human health, sustainable development and economic prosperity — spanning medical devices and diagnostics, medicines, agricultural and marine biotechnology, animal health and bioenergy.

One of many initiatives by LSQ to nurture the state’s life sciences industry is the LS Catalyst program, run in partnership with Advance Queensland. The program is committed to supporting and growing the entrepreneurial culture and start-up ecosystem in the life sciences sector by providing companies with opportunities at all stages of the innovation spectrum. The program aims to create a unique roadmap with customised solutions for each new start-up or SME through quality access to mentors, training, and introductions to investors and business networks.

Foxo Technology, Nadu and Specialist Airway Solutions are just three participants in the LS Catalyst program to benefit from opportunities to partner with investors and present a pitch at this year’s Digital RESI Virtual Conference. In addition to pitching, LS Catalyst program participants OrthoDx and QHeart Medical will also participate in the conference’s prestigious Innovation Challenge Final.

VP R&D and Quality of QHeart Medical Dr. MadhusudanRao Neeli recently shared his thoughts heading into the conference.

“QHeart Medical is very excited to be part of the RESI Life Science Investment Conference and to have competitively ranked in the top 35 companies for the Innovation Challenge Final,” Dr Neeli said.

A supporter of initiatives aimed at cultivating opportunities for start-ups and small business, LSQ is proud to champion the potential of Queensland’s biotechnology sector to feed, fuel and heal the world through initiatives like the Digital RESI Virtual Conference in 2020.

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Life Sciences Queensland

LSQ is a Member based organisation that is working for the life sciences industry in Queensland. LSQ recognises and supports the Queensland Government’s commitment to work with industry, to build infrastructure and attract world-class individuals to form the basis of a life sciences industry in Queensland. As an industry-led vehicle, which promotes and supports all segments of the life sciences industry, LSQ works to enhance Queensland’s national and international reputation as a centre of commercial and research excellence in life sciences.

Foxo

On average, doctors spend 66 minutes on hold, send and receive 75 emails between staff and their network, and experience missed calls, messages, and errors that impact efficiencies and patient safety every single day. The lack of a wide-reaching collaborative healthcare network continues to lock communication and health information in silos behind primitive systems. Foxo presents national and global health with an interoperable, collaborative platform (desktop/mobile) that enables real-time messaging between clinicians, nurses, teams, departments, and organisations. Built on scalable infrastructure, easy to deploy, and approved by Qhealth, Foxo features the requisite tools, integrations, and workflows required for powerful, fast, borderless clinical communication.

Nadu

Nadu, be nice to your nose! Nadu is a range of self-administered nasal cleaning & medicinal delivery devices that reduces symptoms of respiratory diseases such as chronic sinusiuts, allergic sinusitus, hayfever, cystic fibrosis, influenza as well as removing allergens & air-borne pathogens. The hand-held devices are easy to travel with and provide real-time data to health care professionals such as ENTs, doctors and allergists. The patent-pending capsule technology allows for the delivery of medication and the tracing of dose, frequency and type straight to the Nadu App. The Nadu technology is based on a parallel innovation model; allowing us to develop multiple-time-use devices for the developed world and single-time-use sterile medicinal delivery devices for disaster relief and pandemic management to reduce risk of disease transmission, manage air-quality issues and reduce respiratory infections.

OrthoDx

SynvIchor by OrthoDx is a molecular diagnostic designed to differentiate between sterile and infection causes of joint inflammation. This technology leverages the host immune response to report to the physician whether the cause of the patient’s joint pain is inflammatory or infective. The difference in treatment is significant. This means antibiotics are reserved only for those that need it. The diagnostic is rapid (less than 3hrs) reliable (works in every patient with an intact immune system) and accurate (high negative predictive value).

QHeart Medical

QHeart Medical is a private Australian medical device company developing and commercializing a novel therapy device for highly unserved moderate heart failure. Also referred to as preserved ejection fraction heart failure (HFpEF), this subset of patients represents 40-50% of patients and is a significant unmet clinical need as there are currently no suitable therapies for this patient population. HFpEF patients have increased aortic stiffness by 88% relative to young controls, and increased pulse pressure and heart rate. Our core value is to reduce the high cost of treatment and improve the quality of life for patients suffering from moderate heart failure and we are competitively positioned to serve this need with the BioQ CA disruptive technology. The BioQ CA device has been validated in animal and pilot human testing, has 3 issued and 2 pending patents for global markets, and has an experienced management team and partnership with leading research and manufacturing groups.

Specialist Airway Solutions

Specialist Airway Solutions is developing the D-FLECT deflectable-tip bougie designed to help anaesthetists successfully intubate the difficult airway. The D-FLECT bougie is a novel single-use tracheal tube introducer that can negotiate the highly angled curves of a difficult airway. Upward deflection of the tip allows the bougie to be easily inserted into the trachea to facilitate faster intubation. Successful intubation during anaesthesia or critical care is vital to prevent complications, which can be catastrophic. There is a vast unmet need for an improved introducer as 50 million intubations are conducted annually worldwide, of which up to 30% are considered difficult.

Keizo Koya

By Claire Jeong, Vice President of Investor Research, Asia BD, LSN

Claire Jeong

As many of our readers are aware, the LSN team is busily preparing for the upcoming Redefining Early Stage Investments (RESI) Conference from June 8th – 10th. This will be our third digitally run RESI, and we have been impressed by everyone’s dedication and support for our conferences.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak with Keizo Koya, CEO of SOLA Biosciences. SOLA Biosciences attended the last digital RESI conference in April and was one of the highest performing companies at the conference with 26 confirmed investor meetings. I was able to learn more about SOLA Biosciences’ proprietary platform technology and hear about the factors that contributed to his success in securing an impressive number of meetings at the last RESI.

Mr. Koya delivers a very positive message and is exemplary of how businesses should be moving forward during these times. We hope you enjoy this read!

Claire Jeong (CJ): Could you briefly introduce SOLA Biosciences and the company’s technology?

Keizo Koya (KK): SOLA Biosciences was established in 2016 based on the research Dr. Akinori Hishiya started working on in 2010. The science he was working on was very fascinating to me, but when I first met him, I was working for a different biotech company, so I spent time with him on weekends to help move the research forward. Very promising data was generated, and we moved the science into Strategia Therapeutics, which is a consulting company I founded in 2012 to start a new, innovative model for drug R&D, and help support Asian-based pharmaceutical companies in the USA. We filed for patents, published research findings in scientific journals, then spun out SOLA Biosciences.

SOLA Biosciences developed a novel, “Engineered Chaperone” technology that can control cellular protein folding of disease-causing proteins. The technology is designed to harness the power of the patient’s own chaperones to repair and prevent protein misfolding. This is a platform technology, as it can potentially be applied for any types of conformational diseases (proteopathies) such as Alzheimer’s Disease, Huntington’s Disease, ALS, and more. We are taking a patient-centric approach and want to use our technology for life-saving therapies.

CJ: How has the Covid-19 pandemic impacted your business?

KK: Fortunately, the pandemic has not had a significant impact on our business.  Long before Covid-19, I had wondered whether it was necessary for all of the management team to be in the same location to discuss science and move business forward. I wanted to work with the best people from all over the world in the fields of research, manufacturing, development, etc., Therefore, for a few years I have been using platforms and approaches so that our team can work remotely anywhere in the world.

CJ: What was your initial thought when you heard that RESI shifted to a digital format? Did you have any concerns?

KK: Not at all. I thought it was a good idea. I saw LSN’s summary of the Digital RESI April event on LinkedIn, and it was wonderful to see people all over the world connect in virtual meetings for 48 hours.

CJ: Great! So how many meetings did you have at the last RESI event?

KK: We had 26 meetings in total.  For the people we could not schedule meetings during the conference, we had meetings after RESI.

CJ: Were these meetings with mostly investors, or did you meet with other groups as well?

KK: We focused on investors and pharmaceutical companies for this RESI conference.  Even though we did not have meetings with CRO companies, it is good to learn about them through the RESI list.

CJ: What do you think contributed to your success?

KK: The participants were interested in learning more about our unique technology platform and how it can be applied to conformational diseases such as Alzheimer’s which quite a few investors had interest in.

CJ: How are your follow-up discussions going?

KK: Most of the investors are still reviewing our platform technology and pipelines. Right after RESI, we followed up with all in more detail and we are moving forward under CDAs.  One group kindly let us know that our stage of R&D is still too early for them, which we fully respect their decision.

CJ: Given how the current situation is, it seems like RESI and other conferences will continue digitally. Do you think continuing this Digital RESI provides enough value for companies like SOLA?

KK: Absolutely. Even major conferences like ASCO are also converting to a digital format. The only missing part is actually meeting the people, which gives us an opportunity to get to know them better and show my passion for our projects. Traveling to meet new people and to discuss how to develop the drugs with them is very enjoyable.  But the digital format still provides a good alternative.

CJ: What advice would you like to provide, if any, to fellow entrepreneurs?

KK: I am still in the process of raising funds and continuously learning from fellow entrepreneurs, collaborators, and investors.  The main goal for many startups is to raise money and then exit.  If we find amazing investors/companies to transfer our technology to, who can develop our technology better than we can, then that is certainly the right strategy. It is also good to find collaborators and investors to work together if we can create synergy.  The ultimate goal is to use our technology to help patients. This is all part of a large process of all of us helping patients by doing what we can do well. With an open mind, we will be able to develop a good, long-term relationship with investors and/or collaborators to bring the needed medicine to patients.

By Bryanna Allison, Business Development Manager, LSN

BioHealth Innovation (BHI), central Maryland’s dynamic tech hub, will showcase its regional life science environment with 5 panels from the BioHealth Capital Region (BHCR). The LSN/BHI alliance works well because the Digital RESI format can increase both the reach of regional tech hubs and their visibility with the RESI global player attendees. Indeed, worldwide players seek technology partnerships with North American regional tech hubs. The 5 panels featured will allow the world to become more acquainted with this dynamic tech hub. Check out the descriptions of these panels below, and the organizations the speakers represent.

Great Investment Opportunities in the BioHealth Capital Region

While we adjust to a Covid-19 world, there continue to be great investment opportunities in the BioHealth Capital Region. Join BHCR CEOs as they make short introductions about themselves and companies. Join CEOs from American Gene Technologies International Inc., miRecule, Adaptive Phage, Healion Bio, KaloCyte, Emocha, Tailored Therapeutics, Inc., DEKA, and Ashvattha Therapeutics, Inc.

Raising Early Stage Capital in Difficult Times

Companies are still working to raise capital while we remain socially distant. Join us as we discuss how to best adjust and continue attracting investors to your business. Moderator, Rich Bendis, Founder, President and CEO of BioHealth Innovation, is joined by investment experts from Alexandria Venture Investments, The BioHealth Capital Fund, Boston Millennia Partners, and JP Morgan.

Collaborating for Growth in the BioHealth Capital Region

Being able to collaborate with your business partners is as important today as it ever has been. This panel demonstrates the strong collaboration taking place in the BioHealth Capital Region. Led by Jarrod Borkat, Senior Director, External Partnerships & Collaborations, Emergent BioSolutions, Inc., the panel includes experts from Children’s National Hospital, George Mason University, AstraZeneca, and Immunomic Therapeutics.

International BioHealth Companies Entering the U.S. Market

Also known as “Soft Landing”, the ability for international BioHealth Companies to successfully enter the U.S. market and grow is a constant challenge. Having a partner in the U.S. to help with this process is critical to your business. Moderator, Rich Bendis, Founder, President and CEO of BioHealth Innovation, discusses the topic with representatives from BHI, Gentian Diagnostics (Norway), Mimetas (Netherlands), and OnDosis (Sweden).

Advancing your Technology Through Non-Dilutive Grants

Keeping ownership of your company and technology, while raising growth capital, is an important topic for many entrepreneurs. Join our panel led by BioHealth Innovation Inc.’s Managing Director – Economic Development, Judy Costello, as she covers the ins and outs with participants who have successfully navigated these waters. Industry experts from Aperiomics, miRecule, Mimetas, SpineAlign, and TEDCO join the discussion to share their experiences.

Learn more about the Digital RESI – Three Day Conference Registration on June 8-10, 2020 ONLINE.

By Gregory Mannix, Chief Conference Officer, Vice President International Business Development, LSN

Partnering for Digital RESI June is up and running, and you have your company and personal profiles refined, updated and uploaded to the platform. You are diligently identifying the investors who are the best fit for your technology and stage of development and have begun to request a lot of meetings with the 400 investors and strategic partners who will be participating. You will soon start to get the first confirmations of meetings and you will be following up and sending out new requests over the next 3 weeks to get as many meetings booked as possible for June 8^th-10^th.

Now you need to start preparing for those important meetings.  Begin to prepare your meetings early to be as ready as possible when RESI begins. Your goal is to make enough of an impression in that 30-minute meeting on each of your potential investors that you get a commitment to have a next meeting. Here are some tips on how to make the most out of those crucial 30 minutes:

1. Research the Investor Firm

Try to understand the investment firm with whom you are meeting. Typically, there is a lot of information on the firm’s website about their mission and philosophy, as well as their portfolio of companies in which they have invested. This information is key to understanding how your company might fit in. Take notes of the reasons you see a potential to work together that you can bring up during the meeting.

2. Research the person you are meeting with

You will know in advance who you are meeting with from each of the investor firms. Be sure to learn all you can about the person you will be meeting with. One important thing to discover is the background and experience of your meeting counterpart. If you see that they happen to have a deep background in your particular area of technology, you might focus your pitch differently than if they have a background in finance and business.

3. Prepare your elevator pitch

For a 30-minute meeting, it is crucial to get the investor’s attention and interest in a concise, clear pitch that highlights all of the key elements of your company, without going into deep and lengthy technical descriptions that will eat up your time. Focus on what is important and differentiates your technology or team. Let the conversation flow naturally. Engaging the investor in a discussion rather than running through your slides will often help retain investor interest.

4. Have back-up slides on hand

That doesn’t mean you are not prepared to go into more detail if you are asked a specific question. Have your slides prepared that you can easily access in case you need to explain your asset’s mechanism of action in more detail or your data achieved to date that you may have summarized in your initial pitch. You can never have too many backup slides to address questions that might come up during your meeting.

5. Bring a second attendee to meetings

You will be very focused on making your pitch and answering any questions that come up, so you likely will not be taking notes during the meeting. If you are having back-to-back meetings, it will be extremely challenging to remember all of the comments and questions from investors during each of your meetings, but that information is really important for your follow up. Having a colleague on hand to take good notes at the meetings is a really good way to be sure you don’t miss anything.

6. Prepare a binder with your notes for each meeting

You will hopefully be needing your laptop for multiple meetings during RESI, some of them back-to-back, so I highly recommend having a paper back-up of your pre-meeting notes on each of your meetings that you can quickly reference between meetings. A binder with your pre-prepared notes and space to take notes during the meeting will be very useful.

7. Have questions prepared in advance

Most of your meeting with a new potential investor will be about presenting your company and yourself, and answering questions from your investor counterpart, but you shouldn’t miss out on the opportunity to ask questions that you may have from your pre-meeting research. Questions can be about what role the investor will play in your company if they decide to make an investment—such as, do they take a seat on the Board—or if they typically want to be the lead investor or part of a syndicate. Another thing that is always good to know is how any investor can add value to your company if they invest in you; what experience, expertise or connections do they have in your field that can help you in the future?

Best of luck to you all at Digital RESI June. It is such an exciting opportunity for you to make meaningful connections that will drive your success.

By Bryanna Allison, Business Development Manager, LSN

The action item today is keeping up your business momentum in these challenging days. LSN has seen a distinct uptick in global regional-based tech hubs taking advantage of Digital RESI to expand into the new digital paradigm of global partnering conferences. The main strategy is to get the early stage companies back in the mix and secondly, to showcase the technology assets that are teeming in these dynamic regional hubs. The BioHealth Capital Region is a perfect example of deciding to take advantage of RESI and to expand their global reach.

The BioHealth Capital Region is uniquely positioned to help address Covid-19 with its biocluster serving as home to NIH and its 27 research institutes and 6,000 scientists, the FDA with its accelerated approval process, NIAID, BARDA and Dr. Anthony Fauci, all on the front line every day. In addition, many of the region’s industry leaders are developing innovative therapeutics, vaccines and diagnostic tools to fight the virus, including Emergent BioSolutions, Novavax, GSK, AstraZeneca, Qiagen and more than 30 more BioHealth companies of all sizes.

BioHealth Innovation, a Gold sponsor for this RESI Conference, has been busy assisting companies and entrepreneurs with their applications for the numerous Covid-19 grant opportunities, and working with international companies desiring to enter the U.S. market through the BioHealth Capital Region. We also are in the process of raising a $50 million BioHealth Capital Venture Fund to address the early stage funding gap in our ecosystem.

BioHealth Innovation, in cooperation with RESI, will be sponsoring 5 informative panels during Digital RESI June, with additional details will follow. We welcome all to join these sessions to hear from knowledgeable BioHealth experts, investors and entrepreneurs regarding best practices and information they can use to grow their businesses.

By Erich White, Business Development Manager, West Coast, LSN

Lisa Iadicicco Executive Director of Women In Bio

Sibylle Hauser MAPS Vice Chair, Founders Forum of Women In Bio

Erich White BD Manager of LSN

Women in Bio is a sponsor of our upcoming Digital RESI June event, and I spoke with Lisa Iadicicco, Executive Director, Women In Bio and Sibylle Hauser, MAPS Vice Chair, Founders Forum of Women In Bio to learn more about their organization, their mission and why they chose to partner with LSN and RESI.

Erich White: How did the Women Founders Forum and Entrepreneur Center start?

Sibylle Hauser: The Women Founders Forum started out in San Diego, but now we have women entrepreneurs all over the United States attached to it. We will start more of these peer groups in other chapters now, as well. Lisa, together with the executive team, had the idea to grow the center, and I came from the bottom up with growing the Founders Forum into a national Entrepreneur Center. The primary goal for the Entrepreneur Center will evolve, but right now the Center offers resources, education, corporate leadership programs, and entrepreneur programs. The goal is to have three pillars. First, give women all the resources they need. Second, provide them with a roster of advisors. Third, provide them with pathways to access capital and financing. We want to prepare our women founders to really have a compelling pitch and give them an opportunity to showcase their technologies and present to as many investors as possible.

Erich White: Are you planning to use the Partnering Platform at Digital RESI to find partners for the Entrepreneur Center?

Sibylle Hauser: We are cautious not to take time away from the women entrepreneurs. Some of the investors have very limited time. Last month, during the Digital RESI 2-Day Partnering Event, I requested to meet with investors but decided to put the discussion aside to after the event. In fact, one of the outcomes form last month’s digital event was that we connected with three VCs wanting to hear more about WIB’s Entrepreneur Center, for which we have scheduled a follow-up conversation this week.

Lisa Iadicicco: We have a pretty targeted group of attendees at RESI that we want to meet with and we want to meet with anyone committed to enhancing the awareness of Women In Bio.

Erich White: Why did you decide to partner with LSN and RESI to sponsor your pitch session?

Sibylle Hauser: WIB has done a pitch session at events before and on a chapter level, as Lisa already mentioned. The Boston Chapter and Washington, D.C. chapters have pitching events there, but we wanted to do something on a national level. We also wanted this to be in an environment where there are many investors and big exposure. RESI is a great conference and platform to do that. I am really excited about doing the session with RESI. Through our outreach for this partnership, we even unearthed women entrepreneurs we never met before, so we were able increase our Women Founders Forum.

Lisa Iadicicco: Sibylle actually introduced us to RESI. We have done this as a chapter only effort in the past. Chicago is another chapter that consistently has a pitch or startup competition. But we want to create an event that we can speak to a national audience and RESI and LSN offered a platform for us to do just that.

Erich White: What part of RESI did you like the most so far?

Sibylle Hauser: We had the chance to witness the Featured Company Pitch Session during RESI San Francisco this past January. I really liked the value of the feedback. A lot of these women entrepreneurs don’t get feedback on their approach or pitch from an investor’s point of view. So, the pitch session is helping them hone in more and target their pitch to investors.

Lisa Iadicicco: That was the thing, to hear that feedback. I’ve been on panels and several pitch competitions here in the Pittsburgh area and the feedback is really critical. You don’t usually get this like you do at RESI. We want everyone to walk away from this experience having learned something, even if they are not one of the five finalists to pitch.

Sibylle Hauser: One other point about RESI that made a difference for the companies that participated in the April 2-Day Partnering event. Five of twenty-eight WIB member companies had never pitched to an institutional investor before. They are very good at getting grants from the NIH. But this was their first time getting in front of an institutional investor. It was a totally new audience for them. Obviously, it was a learning curve for them, but it was a really good opportunity for them to start relationships with some of these investors. Some of these companies may be early but, nevertheless, it is never too early to start relationships with a potential top target investor.

Erich White: Anything else you would like to say about RESI?

Sibylle Hauser: What I really liked was that LSN helped me push these women entrepreneurs to the limit. They were, in parallel, in NIH grant submissions last month. But LSN gave them a unique opportunity and a really great methodology for booking meetings with investors. LSN gave each company a list of targeted investors that were a fit for the companies and their assets as well as an introductory message template for requesting a meetings, suggestions for follow-up messages, a tear sheet template, and recommendations for their messaging and branding. And, if the company adhered to it, they would really have great success. The highest challenge was actually the pre-recorded pitch for the Featured Company Forum. But, in my view, this is the future. I work with some San Francisco investors and we now only do evaluations with pre-recorded video pitches.

Women In Bio

Women In Bio is an organization of professionals committed to promoting careers, leadership, and entrepreneurship of women in the life sciences.

We aim to help women achieve the highest levels of leadership, influence and decision-making that they desire. Our primary focus is to provide women-to-women mentorship and leadership support through all stages of career development

• from bench to boardroom
• from academia to industry
• from first job to last
• from idea to entrepreneur

Our members reflect the increasing spread of the life sciences. We belong to biotech and pharma companies, universities and institutes, law and accounting firms, marketing and PR firms, CROs and CMOs. Many of our members are entrepreneurs, and a focus on entrepreneurship has remained core to the mission of WIB since its foundation in 2002.