Bio-Europe 2012, figures and feelings from Amsterdam

A few days ago I attended Bio-Europe Spring. The spring was shining in Amsterdam and the city was beautiful and welcoming as always. The meeting was intense: 2,157 attendees from 1,304 companies participated in 11,172 one-to-one meetings and we could chose between 135 company presentations.

The industry atmosphere was showing clear signs of improvement and a few companies as Almirall were jubilant by the recent FDA approval of its aclidinium bromide for COPD Treatment. 26 companies and entities from Catalonia were there, making up 57% of the total Spanish representation at BES 2012.

Of special interest were the Opening Remarks by David Thomas that were covering three main topics: Public market performance in the US vs other sectors, Private funding environment and Drug pipeline deal volume (see here its slides). The public performance of the 300 public US biotech was in 2011 clearly outstanding with an averaged +12% compared with the -25% of the median of the rest of sectors. In the current year the trend is still better for biotechs and, more interesting for European eyes, the public investors are more focused on small early stage companies (53% of the investments were done on companies with less than 100M USD of MarketCap and 48% on companies on early stage). This should be a good couple of bullet points for those in Europe that are skeptic about the sector.

In the side of the Funding environment the more striking figure was the 32% forecast of increase of investment on orphan diseases, here the prospects of small companies to retain value is higher.
Finally, David presented the figures of deals with upfronts bigger than 10M USD before and after the crisis. The overall number has decreased from 165 in the period 2006-2007 to 114 in the 2010-2011, here I guess the mergers in the big companies could have play an additional role to the global economic slowdown. But, interestingly, if we analyze the data we see that the early deals (PC and Phase I) are still robust (24% in the period 2006-2007 for 25% in the 2010-2011). If we consider only the PC deals the average is 37% in both periods. So there is room, as always, for companies with early assets to get fruitful deals. It was a great meeting and it is a fantastic sector.

Biotech is still alive

As I said in the previous post, despite this gloomy hubris, Biotech is still alive. Some news are giving hints that some thawing is occurring in this never-ending postnuclear winter that the debt crisis brought to Europe nobody remembers how long ago… ok, taken, it is not a catharsis yet but still things are moving.

Thus just to mention some of them: Danish biopharma Symphogen has raised €100m in the largest ever funding round for a European biotech company. The private Danish biopharmaceutical company, is developing antibody therapeutics to treat cancer, with rozrolimupab (Sym001), for the treatment of Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP) and prevention of Hemolytic Disease in Newborns (HDN) starting Phase II.

French diabetes firm Adocia raised €25 million ($33 million) in the first European biopharma IPO of the year.

And for US companies or markets , Alnylam, the RNA interference based company raised $87 million through a public offering of 8.6 million shares. Ceptaris has raised $15 million in a venture debt financing to help fund its transition from a clinical-stage company to one that anticipates commercializing its first product later this year. Satori Pharmaceutical the firm devoted to Alzheimer’s disease announced that three existing investors would put up to $15 million in convertible debt as a bridge to the clinic for its disease-modifying drug. While the French orthopedic imaging firm EOS imaging went public on the NYSE Euronext February 15 and raised €38 million.

There is consensus in strategic analysts that biotechnology is not only the most important success factor in future economic development – it will also change the global power balance: “the one who controls the chips also controls the game”. Anyone travelling to Shanghai, Singapore and other Far East hubs agree that Asia is quickly catching up in the biotech space. So we better keep moving ahead.

In Spain, where we suffer from some lack of international visibility, some Funds specialized in biotech are being raised and there is hope that they will contribute to the consolidation and maturation of a sector with some very nice jewels yet to blossom...

GynEC®-DX: our dream came true...

And..., after 5 years of hard work and heavy investments, our dream came true!. We got ready our first product GynEC®-DX, a new diagnostic test for the early detection of endometrial cancer (EC). We are happy because this product will help patients and doctors to deal with a life threatening disease. But on top, this achievement also demonstrates that the technological platform from Oryzon is highly competitive and validates our business model.

EC is the 4th cancer indication in women in Europe and the 1st of the gynecological cancer (88.000 cases/year in Europe and near 300.000 in the world). 22.000 women in Europe die per year due to endometrial cancer. According to KOLs, there are two main problems with endometrial cancer, the most frequent tumour among women in Spain after breast cancer: the difficulty in detecting all cases at an early stage and the discomfort, costs and risks associated with the diagnostic tests, generally involving invasive procedures as hysteroscopy.

The new detection system developed by Oryzon, jointly with Reig Jofré Laboratories, a brave Spanish medium size pharma company, under the name GynEC®-DX, provides a solution to both problems. We estimate that, worldwide, more than 3000.000 women could bennefit of this early detection product.

GynEC®-DX uses a gene-expression fingerprint to diagnose endometrial cancer on uterine aspirates. GynEC®-DX is a Product based on RT-PCR analysis performed on a Roche Platform and a bioinformatic analysis (specific algorithm) in a signature of 5 genes.

The product is protected with an International Patent and is launched on the Spanish market in the next weeks.

We had reported last year on the performance of GynEC®-DX on a scientific paper (that was chosen for the cover page of the printed issue of the International Journal of Cancer). But the definitive performance of the product was demonstrated in a multi-centric double blind prospective clinical trial conducted in 14 Spanish hospitals under the supervision of Dr. Jordi Ponce, at Bellvitge Hospital, and Dr. Antonio Gil, at the Vall d’Hebron Universitary Hospital in Barcelona, GynEC®-DX allows the presence of tumour to be ruled out in 97% of cases through a sample of uterine aspirate, thus allowing a better assessment of whether further analysis as biopsies and hysteroscopies are indicated. When combined with traditional biopsy the negative predictive value is 99,6%.

In the mean time, Oryzon got also the accreditation as Centralized Human Diagnostic Lab from the Catalan Government and the Manufacturing License for an in vitro health-care diagnostic product by the Spanish Drug and Medical Devices Agency (AEMPS).

GynEC®-Dx will be commercialized first directly in Spain together with laboratories Reig-Jofré and we expect to find soon an international partner for markets abroad. We believe that this product together with others to be launched in 2012 will change our company on a definitive way.

Years of hard work deserved it...!

Biotech is alive and kicking!.

In the global crisis, Biotech is still alive. Numerous news are giving hints that some thawing is occurring in this never-ending postnuclear winter that the debt crisis brought to Europe nobody remembers how long ago… So the best way to get these inputs is to keep moving… Alive and kicking!.

Thus, our CSO, Dr. Maes flys this week-end to San Diego to present Oryzon’s Epigenetic advances at the 4th Annual CHI X-Gen Congress, in the CLINICAL GENOMICS. Epigenetics, Targets and Therapies: on March 5-7 March at the Hilton San Diego Resort in San Diego, California. Tamara's presentation will occur on March 6th at 11:00 am. Under the title “Development of Novel, Potent LSD1 Inhibitors and Their In Vitro and In Vivo Effects on Tumor Cell Growth”.

The TARGET AND THERAPIES session will be chaired by Dr Andrew Pope, Group Director of the Technology & Science Platform of GlaxoSmithKline who will give an Overview of Current and Developing Approaches to The Discovery of New Chemical Matter which Modulates Epigenetic Targets. In the same session, the Directors of Biology of Epizyme and Constellation Pharmaceuticals, two other companies active in the Epigenetic field, together with researchers from the Harvard Medical School will also present other interesting aspects of the field.

Epigenetics is a very, very hot spot field in the pharmaceutical industry. It is predicted that world revenues for epigenetic therapies and technologies will reach $2.73bn in 2015 and that the overall market will grow with a CAGR of 16% between 2010 and 2015. Therapies will remain the largest source of revenue in the epigenetics market. The deal activity on the field is intense. Constellation's deal with Genentech last january and Epizyme's one with GSK prove it.

And in three weeks from now we will be also in Amsterdam in the Bio- Europe Spring Conference, with about 2000 delegates from more than 1000 firms. Oryzon’s is having a loaded program with international companies and investors.