Formula BIO: preliminary results
The best biotechnological startups of the Formula BIO program were presented at the Lomonosov Moscow State University Science ParkMsuNews.Ru
Innovative projects presented at the second stage of the Formula Bio program and claiming financial support from Rusnano Corporation promise to improve many areas of human activity – from medicine to animal husbandry.
However, as the publication "Science and Technology of the Russian Federation" reports in its publication, the greatest interest of the jury, which last week selected the most promising of these startups at the Lomonosov Moscow State University Science Park, was caused by new technologies for early diagnosis and treatment of oncological diseases.
Two months ago, when Formula Bio just started, all its participants joined teams. They attended classes and business trainings conducted by teachers of the Faculty of Biology and the Faculty of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics of Moscow State University and venture experts, and gradually developed their own startups. Last week it was time to evaluate these innovative projects. However, the organizers immediately made a reservation that this was only a preliminary selection. The final decision of the jury, consisting of representatives of Rusnano, the Skolkovo Foundation and the Faculty of Economics of Moscow State University, will be known next year. At the same time, the creators of the selected startups will go to the USA to continue their studies and further promote their projects.
To be among the winners, the participants of Formula Bio had to not only build their startup around a promising new technology, but also correctly calculate the amount of required investments, the payback period of the project, the projected profit and the main risks. As Mikhail Kirpichnikov, Dean of the MSU Biofactory, noted, today such "technological" managers are urgently needed, that is, people who have not just grown up on the general concepts of macro- and microeconomics, but understand where technologies are growing from.
In confirmation of his words, the creators of the Diagnostic Kits project, offering to use real-time PCR techniques in laboratory analyses, focused on reducing the process itself and reducing its cost. In addition, in their opinion, the use of the new technology will reduce the requirements for transportation and storage conditions of biomaterial.
Another startup, Spectrolux, is a technology for evaluating meat and dairy raw materials. The Spectrolux-BM device itself was created outside of this project and has already managed to receive prizes from international industrial forums. Currently, this device is being used quite successfully in a number of Moscow hospitals, and the guys from the Formula Bio project have enlisted the support of its developers and have set themselves the task of expanding the market for its use. First of all, the technology of laboratory evaluation will be implemented in meat and dairy industries. Cooperation agreements have already been reached with the Rublevsky Sausages plant and the Ostankino Meat Processing Plant. The team of this project consists of students of Moscow State University, Higher School of Economics and MIPT.
The idea of their rivals working on the startup "Morphochips" concerns the early diagnosis of diseases. To date, the high cost and unavailability of express diagnostics is the main reason for the late detection of oncological diseases in Russians. For example, in the case of leukemia, which affects a third of children with cancer in our country, this cause leads to a quarter of deaths. The authors of this project proceeded from the fact that in our body each antigen corresponds to a certain antibody. The antigen interacts with the antibody according to the key-lock principle. A morphochip is a transparent substrate on which antibodies are immobilized. A suspension of cells is applied to this substrate, and two analyses are performed: diagnostics of cell antigens (immunophenotyping) and morphological examination of cells. According to the creators of the startup, this technology will not only reduce the cost of diagnostics, but also increase its accuracy.
The next project was dedicated to the Pig-gen genomic diagnostics Center. The product of this collective is intended for pig breeding complexes. According to the guys who came up with this development, due to poor breeding work, pig breeding complexes cannot realize their economic potential and do not receive profit. The analysis of boar producers worth 45 thousand rubles and the analysis of sows, which will require another 700 rubles, will allow you to select the best pigs and increase the productivity of the herd. One boar inseminates 550 sows, which bring 11 thousand pigs a year. Each boar brings 79 million rubles to his company. The proposed project will make it possible to make a profit from one boar of at least 83 million rubles.
There were also virtual concepts among the projects. The Future Mother portal, according to the idea of its authors, will collect the most up-to-date information on the health of expectant mothers. In addition to combining all currently available information on pregnancy management, the startup implies the creation of an electronic database of doctors and a kind of online medical record. Each user will be able to find a doctor on this portal, based on the competencies that he expects from him, or some personal preferences. The system will implement the possibility of joining communities. Each woman will have her own profile, where personal information and medical data will be collected, so that expectant mothers can easily find like-minded people or friends with similar medical problems. 1.5 million women get pregnant in Russia every year. According to the creators of this project, the Future Mother portal will allow them to unite and choose the appropriate pregnancy management. According to the developers, they need 47 thousand dollars to launch this portal. The costs will be associated both with the creation and promotion of the site, and with the involvement of qualified medical specialists.
Among all the startups presented, the jury noted the project "Pharmacocytes", which is aimed at the treatment of oncological diseases. About 2.5 million people currently suffer from various forms of cancer in Russia. With continuing trends, this problem can become one of the main causes of mortality in the world. Classical methods of treatment, headed by chemotherapy, do not always lead to recovery. However, very often they cause serious side effects. A fundamentally new technology of introducing drugs into the body will help solve this problem.
Pharmacocytes are red blood cells, erythrocytes, with drugs loaded into them. The project's scientific base, the Hematology Research Center, has developed a technology for loading two chemotherapy drugs into erythrocytes – doxorubicin and mitoxantrone. With the free administration of these drugs, most of them are destroyed in the human body in a very short period. Therefore, we have to inject this highly toxic drug again and again. This leads to very large side effects.
The use of pharmacocytes will reduce the peak concentration of drugs in the blood, protect the drug from destruction and significantly increase its duration of action. At the same time, its toxicity decreases. The main product of this project is a device for loading the drug into red blood cells. The basis of the business model is the intellectual property of developers, which the creators of "Pharmacocytes" plan to patent. The potential market capacity is 12 thousand courses of treatment per year. The cost of one course is 8 thousand rubles. According to the calculations of its creators, 3 million rubles are needed to launch a startup.
It is assumed that the names of the lucky ones who will receive the right to implement their projects with the support of Rusnano will be known in January 2012. The best projects of the Formula Bio program will also receive support when submitting investment applications to the Assistance Fund, the Skolkovo Foundation and the RVC Seed Investment Fund.
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28.12.2011