Almac Discovery is an oncology focused biotechnology company with a therapeutic pipeline which promises to make a real impact on the quality of life of patients suffering from cancer. Our development programmes illustrate the breadth of our portfolio.

ALM101 is an intra nasal formulation of granisetron for the treatment of chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting (CINV). By providing a nasal formulation of a front line CINV treatment we believe we can increase compliance, optimise delivery and improve time to onset providing patients with an improved alternative to existing oral CINV products.

ALM201 is a novel peptide anti-angiogenic currently in preclinical development. ALM201 acts as an inhibitor of tubulin formation in CD44 expressing cells and is therefore well differentiated from marketed anti-angiogenics and those in development. ALM201 is active at sub nanomolar concentrations in a range of in vitro models and at low doses in tumour xenograft models. Finally, ALM301 is a small molecule allosteric Akt kinase inhibitor programme in late lead optimisation. Several unique series have been identified with good pharmacokinetic and selectivity profiles with a range of Akt subtype specificities.

Almac Discovery is uniquely placed to benefit from the experience within the Almac Group and as such has a particular interest in developing biomarker strategies in parallel with all therapeutic programmes. Almac Discovery represents a biotechnology company with a unique and sustainable approach to improving the lives of patients with cancer.

AvantiCell Science Ltd is a UK-based company that combines world-class scientific expertise with proprietary technologies to deliver a range of customised services and products to the drug discovery and development industry globally. Launched in 2006, AvantiCell has established a reputation for delivering assay results that are truly predictive of the efficacy and safety of the test materials when they enter the later stages of the drug development process.

AvantiCell provides advanced cell culture technology based on diseased and/or healthy primary cells to provide clients with physiologically-relevant human and animal cells that can be utilised for the evaluation of a wide range of test materials, including pharmaceuticals, traditional medicines, natural products, biomaterials, veterinary drugs, and agri-bio products. The quality and nature of the cells can save clients significant time and money in subsequent animal testing and clinical trials since they are a better representation of animal models than established cell lines. In addition to primary cells, AvantiCell can also offer stem cells.

AvantiCell delivers its technology as a mix of services and products customized for the convenience of its clients. Culture systems can be developed for screening programmes aimed at the evaluation of bioactivity and mode of action in test materials ranging from botanical extracts to single chemical entities. Alternatively, primary cell cultures can be provided in a form convenient to the client, including being pre-dispensed into 96-well plates. This unique service allows clients the certainty of cell supply without establishing in-house cell culture expertise and can be extended to complete assay kits.

Goals for BioPartnering North America

Partnering strategy/collaborations:
AvantiCell is seeking clients who wish to add value to their product pipeline.
It is also seeking customers who own or have access to chemical or natural product libraries who wish to screen for bioactivity in physiologically relevant cell types.
It is also interested in collaborative opportunities of strategic relevance.

Biopartner.co.uk is a United Kingdom Accredited Trade Organisation facilitating international partnering for trade, investment and collaborations for Life Sciences companies and institutions across the UK. BioPartner supports SMEs and startups in the UK, and signposts government Commercial Officers and Bionetworking organisations worldwide to UK expertise.

Biopartner.co.uk organises international biopartnering events, projects and missions, operating both independently and in partnership with the UK government. For conferences such as BioPartnering North America, BioPartner coordinates the UK presence and disseminates tradeshow access grants to help UK-based SMEs exhibit their services and products.

At CDSS, our staff have over 30 years experience in providing a wide range of clinical development services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries. We are a clinical research organisation (CRO) specialising in Phase I to IV clinical trials and in the provision of project management and monitoring, regulatory and medical writing and contract research nursing services including the provision of homecare for clinical trials to boost recruitment and retention in all phases of studies. We have a wealth of experience in most therapeutic areas and a particularly strong background in rare diseases.

Cyprotex Discovery Limited is the world’s largest contract research organisation specialising in preclinical ADMET services to research scientists engaged in drug discovery and development. We provide support for a wide range of experimental and computational ADMET and PK services extending from early drug discovery through to IND submission.

Cyprotex core capabilities include our unique high throughput ADME screening service which is based on state of the art robotics and a highly sophisticated customised information management system. This dramatically reduces the cost and time involved in generating data whilst ensuring excellent reproducibility of data. Our customised experimental service provides support for later stage ADME and Pharmacokinetic studies specific to customer requirements. Our in silico ADME predictive modelling service provides a range of novel predictive technologies. Cyprotex’s proprietary software product Cloe® PK integrates core ADME and physicochemical properties to predict whole body pharmacokinetics and is available on our secure web portal, Cloe® Gateway.

Toxicity is the key reason for drug attrition. Our in vitro toxicology service assists customers in understanding the toxic liability of their compounds using a panel of different techniques. Cyprotex is the only contract research organisation with a proprietary High Content Toxicology platform. The CellCiphr™ technology, acquired from Cellumen, applies High Content Screening (HCS) technology to cellular models of disease and toxicity. This technology uses a proprietary advanced informatics and data interpretation platform to assess cytotoxicity to improve prediction of in vivo toxicity. The CellCiphr™ technology is an extensively validated approach that was co-developed with the participation of eight external pharmaceutical and government partners. The CellCiphr™ toxicity profiling panels can reliably identify toxic compounds before entering further preclinical testing.

Domainex has an internal pipeline of oncology targets which is based upon our unique technology Combinatorial Domain Hunting. These internal programmes are exclusively focused on nucleotide triphosphate binding domains (NTP domains) which are found in several important therapeutic targets of particular relevance to oncology. The current portfolio includes a number of lysine methyl transferases and a kinase IKK epsilon. Our IKK program is in lead optimisation. Domainex also offers services to Pharma using our unique patented technology called Combinatorial Domain Hunting (CDH) designed to rapidly express target proteins of all types including those which are technically challenging. We can also rapidly find novel robust hit like molecules with our platform technology LeadBuilder and then develop hits using highly experienced medicinal chemistry.

OET Ltd is a biotechnology company and centre of excellence for baculovirus based recombinant protein expression. OET provides protein expression products, services, consultancy and training to pharmaceutical and biotech companies and academic institutions. OET is also carrying out an extensive R & D programme.

PolyTherics is a biotechnology company that applies precision chemistry to develop protein and peptide-based drugs. These two classes of drugs are administrated to patients by injection and are generally cleared from the body very quickly. This rapid clearance can reduce the efficacy of the drug and increase the frequency that injections have to be administrated to patient. Our precision chemistry technologies can extend the duration of action of these classes of drugs so patients require fewer injections, and can create more efficacious products. This reduces the cost of treatment and improves patient compliance.

The Company has three proprietary precision chemistry technologies for attaching one or more molecules of the polymer poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG) to any therapeutic peptide or protein to slow its elimination from the body. PEGylation is an established method for improving medicines and nine PEGylated products are already approved for use in either the US and/or EU. PolyTherics’ methods of PEGylation add PEG to a specific site on proteins and peptides producing a more homogeneous product than traditional PEGylation technologies.

The market for therapeutic proteins is expected to grow to $160.1 Bn by 2013. PolyTherics has positioned its business to work in partnership with biopharmaceutical companies to produce better products to capitalize on this enormous market opportunity. The Company believes in collaboration to access therapeutic proteins and peptides, and complementary expertise, and pursues opportunities to expand its exploratory research under grant-funded initiatives.

PolyTherics has three proprietary precision chemistry technologies for attaching one or more molecules of the polymer poly (ethylene glycol) (PEG) to any therapeutic peptide or protein to slow its elimination from the body.

• TheraPEG^TM - PEGylation across one or more disulfide bonds naturally present in a protein
• HiPEG^TM - PEGylation at a histidine tag that is expressed at one or both ends of a protein or peptide
• CyPEG^TM - PEGylation at the thiol group of free cysteine within a protein or peptide

PolyTherics has commercial licence agreements with two companies:

• Shantha Biotechnics Limited (a company based in India that became part of Sanofi-Aventis in July 2009)
• Celtic Pharma for the development and commercialization of a therapeutic protein PEGylated using TheraPEG^TM

PolyTherics has externally funded long-term research agreements with the following organisations:

• Minapharm Pharmaceuticals, a leading Egyptian pharmaceutical company, for PEGylation of an undisclosed established biological medicine using TheraPEG^TM
• Zealand Pharma for the development of a PEGylated form of a novel anti-obesity drug.

Commercialization Strategy & Financing Plans

PolyTherics are seeking partners who would like utilise our technologies (TheraPEG^TM HiPEG^TM and CyPEG^TM) to improve the half-life profile of their protein or peptide based drugs. In addition, we are now developing our own clinical pipeline of drugs including “Biobetters” (PEGylated Interferon alpha and PEGylated Interferon Beta) and novel therapeutic protein and peptide candidates which will also be available to partner.

Q Chip is using a novel approach to encapsulate therapeutic peptides in bioresorbable polymer microspheres for injection and sustained drug release (SR). We avoid the use of harsh solvents, high temperatures and shearing forces and achieve high API loading and microsphere monodispersity- two of the most important desirable features of any encapsulation approach, minimising production cost and enhancing syringe-ability, with controllable burst release. We have recently demonstrated successful sustained release over one month of octreotide, in a preclinical model. A small initial burst release was seen, followed by sustained and essentially zero order octreotide release over at least 35 days. Interestingly, there was no lag phase of octreotide release which might otherwise mandate additional daily injections to achieve therapeutic dosing.

We have had similar success with one and three month SR formulations of leuprolide and intend to go next to POC in man. Our octreotide and leuprolide SR formulations are available for licensing.

We use a similar benign approach to therapeutic protein encapsulation and are collaborating with Artes GmbH on the encapsulation of interferon alpha 2a for SR - targeting an improvement on the weekly shots of pegylated interferon currently taken by hep C sufferers.

Q Chip is developing novel technology platforms for the encapsulation of therapeutic peptides for sustained release (SR) and is committed to demonstrating its platforms' capabilities by producing POC data on SR depot formulations of two market leading therapeutic peptides, leuprolide and octreotide. These depot products will compete in the oncology market and in Q Chip's view represent de-risked opportunities for potential partners since both should be amenable to abbreviated regulatory procedures. We are willing to consider licensing our leuprolide and octreotide formulations and we are also interested in talking to potential partners with peptides in development - there is a clear opportunity to develop new sustained release formulations that may extend product patent life as well as enhancing patient compliance.

Goals for BioPartnering North America

Q Chip's Chief Commercial Officer, Tony Mills, will be attending BioPartnering NA and is keen to meet companies with interests in therapeutic peptides, biosimilars and recombinant proteins.

The Smerud Medical Research Group (SMERUD) is a clinical Contract Research Organisation (CRO) operating in the European area with offices in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Our activities are primarily focused on general drug development consulting to the biotech industries, and on executing clinical project management, monitoring of phase I-III studies, regulatory affairs, data management and medical writing projects. The company employs about 80 persons, of whom 65 are clinical research, regulatory or biostatistical professionals. We have been operating since 1993 with involvement in more than 600 clinical trials and more than 300 regulatory projects, in addition to approximately 100 projects related to data management, biostatistics and medical writing. Our international management team consists of senior professionals with many years of experience from the international pharmaceutical industry, academia as well as the consultancy business. The local country operational units, each counting typically 5-20 CRAs, are headed by country managers, all with several years’ practical experience from clinical research. International project managers are based in key cities around Europe. Our company also funds internal clinical R&D projects including PhD programmes in collaboration with renowned medical faculties in our region. Goals for BioPartnering North America

Commercially focused patent attorneys specialising in the pharmaceutical sector:

• We have the specialist knowledge and expertise to assist you in realizing your potential and maximizing your assets. Our flexibility allows us to quickly form an integral part of your team and understand your business.
• We are creative and resourceful and our commercial focus means we create bespoke strategies tailored to your needs.
• We have a proven track record in generating strong IP portfolios for companies that have been subsequently acquired, in particular by a big pharmaceutical company.
• We routinely assist companies in fundraising rounds and we regularly perform due diligence from the perspective of the acquirer.
• We can help you navigate the IP landscape with a freedom to operate analysis that provides clear advice and practical solutions.

Goals for BioPartnering North America

• Promote Sterling IP and the bespoke services that we offer
• Establish links with potential clients
• Understand the Canadian and US markets and the differences between the two
• Establish links with networks such as LifeSciences BC and BayBio with a view to opening an office on the West Coast

Sygnature Chemical Services, founded in 2004, is a leading United Kingdom-based provider of premium drug discovery services to biotech and pharmaceutical companies located in Europe and North America. Core capabilities include medicinal chemistry, synthetic chemistry and computational chemistry. Our team of 38 chemists (80% with PhDs and with 4-22 years pharmaceutical industry experience) has the skills and capabilities to undertake key elements of the drug discovery process:

• Perform medicinal chemistry during the hit-to-lead and lead optimization phases of drug discovery programs, and provide considerable intellectual input into projects
• Design and synthesize custom fragment and lead generation libraries
• Synthesize mg to x00g quantities of drug candidates (non-GMP), building blocks and literature compounds
• Utilize computational chemistry-based approaches during hit finding and support H-2-L and LO activites
• Project manage R&D programs by integrating other drug discovery activities via a network of quality CROs in Europe, e.g. in vitro ADME/PK (through a strategic alliance with Cyprotex), in vitro biology, in vivo disease models etc

Sygnature is considered to be a ‘center of excellence’ for medicinal chemistry-driven drug discovery. Since the company was founded, we have acquired considerable experience in several key therapeutic areas and biological targets, namely:

Therapeutic areas

• Anti-infectives (anti-virals and anti-microbials)
• CNS (neurodegeneration, pain and psychiatry)
• Inflammation
• Metabolic diseases and type II diabetes
• Oncology
• Respiratory (asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary and cystic fibrosis)

Biological targets

• GPCRs
• Ion channels
• Kinases
• Nuclear receptors
• Proteases
• Protein–protein interactions

Commercialization Strategy & Financing Plans

Sygnature Chemical Services is a profitable, highly successful private company. During 2011, our growth strategy includes forming strategic alliances with other respected CROs to provide additional drug discovery services and expertise to our clients.

Goals for BioPartnering North America

During BioPartnering North America, our main goals will be to:

• Introduce our premium drug discovery services
• Find new customers
• Discuss potential research collaborations
• Discuss possible marketing agreements