Next Phase Newsletter

Anne-Marie Carbonell President, Chief Medical Officer, CEO of OncoSynergy

Erich White BD Manager of LSN

As part of Women In Bio’s continuing alliance with LSN and RESI, I spoke to one of their sponsored companies about their experiences at RESI. OncoSynergy is a finalist in the Digital RESI June Innovation Challenge. What follows is my interview with Anne-Marie Carbonell, President, Chief Medical Officer, CEO.

Erich White (EW): What is your tagline and elevator pitch to get the audience calibrated?

Anne-Marie Carbonell (AC): Tagline: A breakthrough approach to the treatment of cancer. Our lead therapeutic program, OS2966 was developed after decades of research relating to our target, CD29. Scientific advisor Rick Horowitz, PhD discovered CD29 while advisor Mina Bissell, PhD later demonstrated that CD29 plays a fundamental role in cross talk between tumor cells and the microenvironment. Co-Founder Shawn Carbonell, MD, PhD further demonstrated the critical role CD29 plays in metastasis, while Co-Founder Catherine Park, MD showed CD29 sensitizes cancer cells to radiation treatment. This body of work, continually validated by collaborators from world-class institutions, is the basis of our innovative approach. After orchestrating the successful FDA IND-approval, I am proud to lead the company’s novel therapeutic into Phase I clinical trials. Overall, our intent is to develop transformative multi-indication cancer drugs that change the standard of care and expedite these solutions to patients by leveraging biopharma/corporate partnerships and enhanced FDA programs.

EW: What funds have you raised, and what is your next fundraise?

AC: OncoSynergy is lucky to have the strong backing of our investors who are equally committed to our mission. Since 2011, we have raised approximately $25M including $1MM in NIH funding. (Developing a new class of therapy takes time!) We are currently raising a $10M round to fund our Phase 1 glioblastoma trial, grow our team and advance our acute leukemia program.

EW: How has LSN and RESI been helping to get you in front of investors? Please describe the coaching and what you have learned.

AC: This has been OncoSynergy’s first year participating in RESI conferences and I am definitely disappointed we didn’t participate before! The hands-on support of the LSN team led me to re-evaluate my outreach strategy as well as my pitch style. Based on this feedback, we developed a strategic vetting and outreach approach that, I am happy to say, has been very successful. I also realized the value in simplifying. Recording the 3-minute presentation for our RESI landing page was a huge help in that effort and has enabled me to modulate my presentation to the specific audience.

EW: Tell me how it has been going for you in terms of getting in front of investors

AC: We kicked off our fundraising campaign in March… enter COVID-19. That said, we have not been able to physically get in front of any investors. I am extremely grateful for video conferencing and that events like RESI decided to go digital. Because of this, we have had a steady stream of productive meetings. In fact, cutting out travel time has enabled me to take more meetings than usual.

EW: How big is your investor list and outreach? How did the fundraising dynamic change after RESI?

AC: Since March we have reached out to approximately 200 potential investors and the list continues to grow as we attend events like RESI. Not a day goes by that we are not following up, scheduling or initiating new outreach.

We built significant momentum around the April RESI event. Nothing like giving your pitch 20 times over 2 days to improve your presentation skills! Additionally, creating updated materials for our dedicated page was a great process. We revamped our executive summary, created a 1-pager and updated our pitch deck. When it was time to begin chasing and follow-up we were armed with great materials.

EW: How do you see the innovation Challenge and how are you approaching it?

AC: Having a dedicated page is also a great tool to help obtain meetings and prepare investors for meetings. If an investor has an idea of who we are and what we are about before our short 30-minute meeting, it dramatically increases the quality of the meeting.

EW: You also participated during the Digital RESI 2-Day Partnering Event last month. How many meetings were you able to secure?

AC: We held 20 meetings during the 2-day partnering event and also had a few others scheduled outside of the conference.

EW: How did you secure so many meetings? What did you do to get so many?

A: My team carefully vets each investor on the platform to ensure goals align and to discover what I call an “outreach angle.” Investors get bombarded with requests, so we need an angle to get them to pay attention! Whether it’s a synergy with a portfolio company, a geographic market of mutual interest or the delegate’s background, it helps to personalize. My team labels each investor P1 (P = priority), P2 or exclude. I send a well-crafted message to all P1 investors. Depending on meeting traffic I circle back to the P2 candidates. Then comes follow-up either via email, LinkedIn or the RESI platform. Overall, it’s a lot of work, but the process works to enable valuable strategic outreach.

EW: What helped you most to get those meetings?

AC: Carefully qualifying investors and persistent follow up. Everyone on our small team makes key contribution toward our business development efforts.

EW: What have you learned so far participating at RESI?

AC: RESI helped us refine our outreach process and materials as well as focus my pitch. The high volume of meetings is a great learning experience for any entrepreneur. I also learned how to get the most out of 30-minute meeting with an investor, including making sure I asked key questions at the beginning of the meeting to allow me to adapt my presentation to the audience.

EW: Any other comments?

AC: Fundraising is an extraordinary amount of work under normal circumstances. Although COVID-19 has brough about an additional layer of complexity and new challenges, I encourage all of my fellow entrepreneurs to stay positive! If your idea is great, the right investor is out there (and hopefully at RESI).

Katya Vert CEO of Nostopharma

Erich White BD Manager of LSN

Companies at all stages, from seed to series B, utilize RESI to increase the power of their fundraising efforts. I spoke to Katya Vert, CEO of Nostopharma to learn how RESI has helped her raise her seed round. Nostopharma is part of the delegation sponsored by Women In Bio, and a participant in the Digital RESI June Innovation Challenge.

Erich White (EW): What is your tagline and elevator pitch to get the audience calibrated?

Katya Vert (KV): Tagline: Treating rare abnormal bone growth disorders ; Pitch: Nostopharma is developing treatments that act on the molecular pathways triggered by physical trauma to the soft tissue around the joints causing abnormal bone formation. Abnormal bone growth affects up to 90% of patients with some fracture types, requiring costly surgery

EW: Tell me about your technology. Where it came from and current status?

KV: When Jelena Jeremic (now CSO) co-authored the “Nature” paper about the mechanism of abnormal bone growth in a genetic disease, I felt compelled to design a treatment. I came up with the plan to test known Hh pathway inhibitors together, in combination. Shortly, Jelena and I co-founded the company to implement this plan of repurposing proven technology from oncology field into the new field of orthopedic trauma and musculoskeletal health.

EW: What funds have you raised and what are you currently raising?

KV: The company is funded by  grants from Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS). We also graduated from NSF I-Corps program where we received excellent support for our customer discovery process. Nostopharma is raising a seed round now to take the treatment that shows great promise in animal model testing into the IND stage and subsequent clinical trials.

EW: Enter RESI.  How has LSN and RESI been helping to get you in front of investors? Please describe the coaching and what you have learned.

KV: We have learned quite a bit – the coaching from LSN is very detailed. The first thing we learned is the standard set of templates that investors expect to see and what kind of information and messaging each template needs to contain. We now are mastering this “peel the onion” approach in our documents and see the results right away. Our story is clearer and more comprehensive than it has ever been.

EW: Tell me how it has been going for you in terms of getting in front of investors

KV: This is where LSN coaching is very helpful as well. We always knew that investors are very busy people and you need to be persistent. However, when it came to the second round of follow up, we usually felt the freeze – what do you write other than “I already sent you this message, can you look at it again now?” With LSN’s help, we are crafting differentiated messages and tactics on how to maximize the number of meetings with investors, during RESI and after it.

EW: How big is your investor list and outreach?  How did the fundraising dynamic change after RESI?

KV: We need to raise the seed round, so it is a daily and hourly work for us. June RESI will be our second conference, and participating there has definitely changed the dynamics, the scope and the pace. We now have our own database of investors, where we track the interactions and prioritize the strategic leads. LSN and RESI have brought a lot of structure in our search for funding.

EW: What do you believe is most important to you about the Innovation Challenge?

KV: The preparation. Being in the spotlight is only great if you are fully prepared. We are raising the bar for our messages and presentations and working hard with our advisors to improve.

EW: You also participated during the Digital RESI 2-Day Partnering Event last month. How many meetings were you able to secure?

KV: Just under 30

EW: How did you secure so many meetings? What did you do to get so many?

KV: I think that being a Featured Company really helped, since investors get to see your posterboard and pitch even before the meeting. The partnering platform is very easy to use and makes sending emails and doing the follow up really easy and streamlined. Once we wrote the introductory emails and follow up emails with the target messages it was so efficient to communicate with all the investors on the platform.

EW: What helped you most to get those meetings?

KV: I honestly think it was the intro email we sent. RESI had a webinar prior to the forum and shared some tips and proven tactics. We certainly liked the structured approach to messaging in emails. This is what worked right away, I think.

EW: How did those meetings go? Any follow-up yet?

KV: We certainly got a lot of the knowledgeable investors to the table. The feedback we got was tremendous. In cases we got to a “no”, we got there quickly, and participating investors provided the detailed explanation. Where investors were interested, we are following up on a few leads now.

EW: What have you learned so far participating at RESI?

KV: We learned so much: how to construct a pitch and what documents we should have in the package ready to go; we learned the “tiered approach” to effective follow up; we learned how to maximize the face time with any investor and what questions to ask them. I hope we learned how to get funded!

EW: Was this the first time you go in front of institutional investors?

KV: Yes

EW: Any other comments?

KV: I am impressed with the level of respect we receive as a company from both LSN and the investor community. RESI and LSN are a lot more than a platform – they walk us through the basics and even advanced techniques of interacting with investors for results. Webinars are hands-on and give you actionable advice. But we also found that every time we reach out to LSN with a question – someone responds very quickly! Investors on the platform are very involved as well in terms of providing feedback, follow up and letting us know their decision.

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

For the upcoming Digital Redefining Early Stage Investments (RESI) Conference from June 8 -10^th, Life Science Nation (LSN) is working with the Korea-Trade Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) to support a delegation of 9 Korean companies. KOTRA has been a proud sponsor of RESI for three consecutive years, and we are happy that they are leveraging our global platform to support international expansion of promising Korean technologies.

As with previous years, we have a diverse representation across therapeutics, medical devices, diagnostics, and digital health. Among these companies, Cipherome and THE.WAVE.TALK were also selected as Innovation Challenge finalists, which speaks for the quality of their technology.

KOTRA has created a webpage dedicated to this “K-Startups” Program.

Please visit http://www.kotrastartups.com for more information on the 9 participating companies.

Below are brief descriptions of KOTRA and the Korean delegation (click on the logos to learn more):

KOTRA is a Korean government agency dedicated to promoting international trade and investment, drive the nation’s economic development, and build prosperity for the global community. Through its 129 offices in 84 countries, KOTRA serves small and medium-sized Korean enterprises looking to tap into the overseas markets. Cultivating innovation and building a vibrant, sustainable startup ecosystem is key to reaching the next stage of Korea’s economic growth. To that end, KOTRA is committed in mentoring rising startup companies and providing institutional support to facilitate their continued success.

Medical Innovation Developer Co.,Ltd. is a company organized for radiogical technologists specializing in research and development. They develop visual aids based on AI and have recently developed a chest X-ray radiography auto decipher (DxRAD), checking lung conditions of normal, abnormal, TB, COPD, pneumonia, asthma, bronchitis, lung cancer and even Covid-19. The advantage of their product is that DxRAD can read and deliver results automatically because it is based on AI. They plan to move forward and develop an ultrasonic image auto decipher, CT image automatic decipher, and an MRI image auto decipher.

Biorchestra develops RNA-based therapeutics that regulate the interaction between micro RNA and messenger RNA. They have two platforms that enable multi-regulation of messengerRNA (mRNA) using microRNA antisense oligonucleotides (ASO) and single mRNA regulation through optimal expression system of mRNA. The RNA drug candidates developed through the platform can implement efficient RNA drug delivery by applying their proprietary drug delivery system technology. BMD-001 (Alzheimer’s disease treatment), to which this technology is applied, is a treatment that applies a drug delivery system passing through the blood brain barrier (BBB) to the brain cells.

Sky Labs, Inc. has developed a Software Reconfigurable Medical AI Platform to detect Atrial Fibrillation (AF) and measure blood pressure, SpO2 and much more. The platform consists of a ring-type medical wearable device, CART (Cardio Tracker), mobile app, doctor web, and cloud server. With a simple ring-type device, CART, patients in their daily life can collect their cardiac signals autonomously and comfortably without any user intervention. Sky Labs has medical device approval from the Korean FDA and expects to have a medical device CE mark for their product in the first half of this year. Sky Labs is currently preparing for US FDA approval and are developing diagnostic features such as heart failure, sleep apnea, COPD, and more. These new products will be released in the summer of 2021.

THE.WAVE.TALK’s mission statement is “The Startup Who Saved The Most Lives On Earth.” They make efforts every day to achieve this mission statement. They have developed a new technology that can rapidly detect foreign substances inside liquid including bacteria using a laser light scattering technique. Using this technology, it’s possible to conduct a urinary tract infection (UTI) diagnosis within 30 minutes while the conventional culturing method takes 24~48 hours. They can also conduct antibiotic susceptibility test (AST) MIC in 3~5 hours whereas the conventional culturing method takes 24~48 hours. Last but not least, their technology is cost-effective and easy to use.

World Class, Leading Quality! -Production & Supply of Human-oriented Dental and Medical Products-

In 2013, Hudens produced and supplied dental products that prioritized patient needs. Following the successful commercialization of their dental carbide burs, they are now recognized as one of the globally leading dental equipment manufacturers, best-known for their unrivaled high-quality products. With their concentration and continuous R&D in the field of dental materials (such as bone substitutes, polymeric resins, dental porcelain and ceramics, burs and alloys) and equipment, they continue to pioneer and lead the global industry. In order to remain at the forefront of the ever-changing market, Hudens promises to prioritize in continuing technological innovation and satisfying customer needs.

Cipherome is a software-based pharmacogenomics and bioinformatics company focused on accurately predicting personalized adverse drug reactions (ADRs) using patented genomic analysis technology. Cipherome has developed XentinelTM technology, a comprehensive drug safety solution with a unique patented ADR risk assessment platform. They are planning to launch 3 products: Xentinel Rx™ , Xentinel Discovery™ , Xentinel Dx™ based on the requirements for each solution.

INTIN, a Philips Healthcare Challenge Runner-up, is a digital healthcare company that develops and manufactures certified self-diagnostic medical devices. The main device, OVIEW-M, is a smart sperm test device that can check the count and activity status of one’s sperm via a smartphone application. More importantly, the device helps save the time and money of visiting a hospital for a sperm checkup. INTIN has attracted over $30 million in investments.

iMediSync Inc. is an engaging QEEG-centered digital mental care platform to develop and serve the EEG biomarkers in neuropsychiatric disorders such as dementia, depression, ADHD for preventive, predictive and integrative mental care, and successful clinical trial of drug development. iMediSync Inc. develops software that supports the diagnosis of dementia by analyzing EEG in less than 5 minutes called iSyncBrain. This risk-assessment software can both be provided to the patient in receiving EEG, and also by a doctor when considering diagnosis and treatment. The company has collected healthy subjects’ EEG for 8 years and developed an algorithm using an AI technology. In the software, the patient’s EEG are uploaded to a cloud platform and then visualized to brain mapping. Major quantitative EEG indices, such as absolute band power, relative band power, spectra, abnormal peak information, band power ratio, asymmetry, coherence and source level networks are provided though iSyncBrain.

MediConnect uses smart sensors and state-of-the-art computer vision in the home to diagnose and manage health issues before they become a problem. Data gathered by RGB-D camera arrays mounted in the home analyze posture, gait, emotion, and diagnosed/un-diagnosed conditions. Furthermore, events such as falls or other accidents are detected and an automatic notification is sent to relatives and medical professionals.