BioVaria 2010 Meets Increasing Demand from Industry and Venture Capitalists for Life-Science IP

BioVaria Spin-off Award goes to iThera Medical GmbH

26-Apr-2010 - Germany

Thirteen European technology transfer organizations from Germany, Austria, France and Norway teamed up this year for BioVaria 2010, presenting over 50 licensable biopharmaceutical inventions and eight promising spin-offs to business developers and investors from the international biopharmaceutical industry. Despite the ongoing airspace restrictions, 90 percent of the presentations were held as scheduled.

‘We are impressed how many delegates have spared no pains to get here – be it by bus, train or car,’ said Christian Stein, CEO from Ascenion in his opening address. ‘We are particularly proud to have technology transfer partners from other European nations on board this year. Together with the continued support from industry and VC investors, we regard this as a strong endorsement for the idea behind BioVaria and as a vote of confidence for what we hope to create: an internationally renowned marketplace for Europe’s top life-science inventions originating from publicly funded research.’

For both, industry and academia, BioVaria provides a unique opportunity to meet and initiate partnerships for the development of promising early-stage projects. In four presentation streams, commercial opportunities in the fields of cancer, autoimmunity, inflammation, cardiovascular and other diseases were presented, with each stream being followed by lively discussions between inventors and potential licensees in the exhibition room.

New in 2010, was the Spin-off Panel moderated by Axel Polack, General Partner at TVM Capital. Eight selected spin-offs were invited to briefly introduce themselves and then challenged with exacting questions from a jury of seasoned managers and investors. Subsequently, the jury selected the most convincing candidate in terms of team, technology and business concept as winner of the BioVaria Spin-off Award worth EUR 3,000. The prize went to iThera Medical GmbH, a start-up that has recently been spun out of the Helmholtz Zentrum Munich to develop and commercialize an innovative molecular photonic imaging technology enabling the non-invasive analysis of tissues or biomarkers in vivo.

‘It was primarily the disruptive potential of iThera’s technology that convinced the jury,’ Axel Polack commented during the award ceremony, ‘although it has been hard to make a decision. We have seen many highly innovative and commercially attractive projects this day, not only during the Spin-off Panel, but also during the presentation streams and the poster exhibition.’

https://www.bionity.com/en/news/116707/biovaria-2010-meets-increasing-demand-from-industry-and-venture-capitalists-for-life-science-ip.html