Press Release

BioCrossroads Announces New Venture Competition Finalists, Winners to Receive Awards at Indiana Life Sciences Summit
8 promising Indiana life sciences early stage companies compete for cash prizes

Indianapolis, Ind., Oct. 16, 2012 — BioCrossroads announced today the finalists in a new competition to spur Indiana’s innovation economy. To accelerate entrepreneurial activity and encourage the development of early-stage Indiana life sciences companies, BioCrossroads launched the New Venture Competition, presented by the law firm Krieg DeVault, earlier this year. Altogether, eight companies qualified as finalists, out of the more than 30 early-stage contenders for the competition’s cash prizes.

“The New Venture Competition is a great new way for us to find and reward promising new companies, a competitive process that also allows those companies to gain experience in presenting innovative products and platforms along with wider exposure to the Indiana life sciences community and marketplace,” said David Johnson, President and CEO of BioCrossroads. “Although there will only be one first-place winner, the conversations and knowledge-sharing among all these impressive contenders is invaluable to BioCrossroads and to the competing businesses.”
The inaugural BioCrossroads New Venture Competition presented by Krieg DeVault was open to all life sciences (biotechnology, pharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostic, ag-biotech) and health information technology companies offering a substantial tie to Indiana and a high potential for attracting investment capital. The finalists include:

  • Algaeon, Inc.: developer of a patent-pending industrial-scale microalgae cultivation technology for leading companies in the nutraceutical and animal micronutrient markets. Algaeon is developing its own cultivation capacity, as well as seeking to license its technology to algae farms.
  • BioRegeneration Technologies, Inc.: an emerging company developing biomaterial therapies for regeneration of injured tissues. InMotion, the first of a platform of regenerative products, is being developed to facilitate healing in damaged joints, restore normal structure, and prevent osteoarthritis.
  • Diagnotes, LLC: a health IT solutions provider and developer of the On Call program. On Call securely connects on-call clinicians with providers, patients and medical records, delivering an integrated, closed-loop system to assure the promise of fully informed, real-time 24-hour care .
  • Medtric Biotech, LLC: a biotechnology company commercializing a patent-pending line of antimicrobial wound dressings that offer a new mode of bactericidal action designed to promote healing and provide a measureable difference in wound care.
  • QuantIon Technologies: an emerging company developing a proprietary technology (PaperSpray) to enable direct quantitative analysis of complex tissue samples (including whole blood) using mass spectrometry. PaperSpray eliminates the need for sample preparation and processing when performing mass spectrometry analysis, representing a compelling value proposition for research stakeholders (pharmaceutical companies and contract research organizations) and clinical partners (physicians, clinics, and hospitals).

In addition to a cash prize of $25,000, the winner of the competition will have access to the Indiana Seed Fund II investment team and the Fund’s network of resources to provide business planning and early-stage strategic support. The winner will also have the opportunity to make a presentation to the Fund’s investment committee for added experience and exposure. Second and third- place companies will be awarded cash prizes of $15,000 and $10,000, respectively.

The competition also features a Pre-Venture prize of $10,000 for a promising technology still early in development. The following companies are finalists in the Pre-Venture category:

  • Animated Dynamics (AniDyn) LLC: specializing in living-tissue laboratory assays for cancer therapeutics. By reflecting light off living tissue samples, the Dynamic Imaging technology measures vital conditions and the effectiveness of chemotherapeutic drugs, with potential applications from drug-discovery to personalized cancer care
  • NERx BioSciences Inc.: dedicated to the discovery and development of first-in-class targeted therapeutics for cancer. The pipeline of small molecule inhibitors seeks to be the first to target a protein/DNA interaction and to represent a new generation of drugs to fight cancer.
  • Sophia Therapeutics, LLC: developing novel therapeutics for the treatment of neuropathic pain. Sophia Therapeutics is based on internationally recognized work by Dr. Rajesh Khanna at the Indiana University School of Medicine. Dr. Khanna and the Indiana University Research and Technology Corporation (IURTC) co-founded the company through IU’s new Spin Up Program.

All New Venture Competition winners will be announced at the Indiana Life Sciences Summit Networking Reception at the Westin Hotel in Indianapolis on October 22, 2012. Krieg DeVault, Anson Group, Bloomberg Government, CHV Capital, Inc., Credit Suisse, Indiana Health Information Exchange, and StepStone Business Partners sponsor the Competition.

About BioCrossroads
BioCrossroads (www.biocrossroads.com) is Indiana’s initiative to grow, advance and invest in the life sciences, a public-private collaboration that supports the region’s existing research and corporate strengths while encouraging new business development. BioCrossroads provides money and support to life sciences businesses, launches new life sciences enterprises (Indiana Health Information Exchange, Fairbanks Institute for Healthy Communities, BioCrossroadsLINX, OrthoWorx and Datalys Center), expands collaboration and partnerships among Indiana’s life science institutions, promotes science education and markets Indiana’s life sciences industry.