Ours at Biotech Showcase
Companies from Skolkovo presented biomedical developments in California
The largest international conference on biotechnology in the USA, Biotech Showcase, has finished its work in San Francisco.
San Francisco hotels were occupied by biologists and pharmacists for four days. Scientists and entrepreneurs from all over the world working in the development of innovative medicines and biotechnologies were united by two partially combined conferences: Biotech Showcase–2015 and G.P.Morgan Healthcare–2015. The events, which largely determine the global pharmaceutical landscape, this year brought together more than 7 thousand professionals. Among them were 11 Russian companies that presented themselves in the United States in search of international relations and investments.
California is known, among other things, as one of the two American states that represent an entire ecosystem associated with biomedical science. For half a century, the US government has deliberately cultivated the appropriate infrastructure on the territory of Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego. As a result, not only dozens of large innovation centers, within which laboratories are tied to scientific institutes and large corporations, but also specialized venture companies are localized on a single geographical territory. And this giant cluster attracts specialized startups like a magnet, regardless of their country of origin.
The January conferences in San Francisco play the role of reporting and elective meetings for the entire community. They summarize the results and clarify the plans. At the Biotech Showcase, scientists present the results of their work to potential investors, businessmen are looking for promising projects for investments. At G.P.Morgan Healthcare, experts and representatives of regulatory organizations identify trends and outline ways to develop the industry. Tens of thousands of negotiations are held, agreements are concluded. The year before last, Russian startups did not participate in these processes. In 2014, the ice broke, the coming 2015 showed positive dynamics.
"Six companies participated in the Biotech Showcase a year ago, now there are ten," says Gelena Lifshits, Director of Medical Programs at the Skolkovo Foundation. – I'm afraid these are modest figures on the scale of the conference. Russia does not look like a strategic link on the map of Big Pharma, we are just appearing there. But mathematically, plus 60% for the year is not the worst result. No project has come here for nothing. Each team is ready to offer potential partners something serious. This is a high-quality science of international level, and ultimately it meets with appropriate interest."
Gelena Lifshits is well acquainted with the achievements of the Russian participants of the conference. All these companies are residents of the Skolkovo Foundation and recipients of its grants. For example, Felicitex-SK has invented a technique for diagnosing dormant cancer cells – those that "escape" from the effects of chemotherapy and cause relapses. Scientists have found a way not only to determine the presence of such cells, but also to bring them out of a state of sleep, exposing them to the impact of therapeutic drugs. If the discovery works, it will seriously improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy.
Another oncological company, Incuron, is bringing to the market a fundamentally new class of anticancer substances – kuraxins that do not cause DNA damage. The developments are at the final stage of the second phase of clinical trials, and if the claimed result is confirmed, it will be a real breakthrough. Already, the company is actively interested in the players of Big Pharma, with whom Incuron held a series of meetings and business negotiations.
One of the priorities at this year's Biotech Showcase was regenerative medicine and cellular technologies. Almost half of the presentations were devoted to them. For doctors working in this sector, the Russian company "Jointexell" is completing the development of a compact and cheap device capable of isolating mesenchymal stem cells from adipose tissue under sterile conditions. There are many ways to use them: for example, to restore cartilage from the donor himself during orthopedic operations. In the future, this invention will be able to solve the urgent problem of an entire segment of the global medical market.
"Of course, I would like to see more Russian projects here, but this is not a question of tomorrow," admits Kirill Kayom, vice president of the Skolkovo Foundation, executive director of the biomedical technologies cluster. – This requires not only serious state support for existing startups, but also the construction of infrastructure in the country, without which even promising projects cannot fully develop. For example, the same preclinical research centers, of which there are only one or two in Russia. Yes, take Skolkovo at least: there are 240 projects within the biomedical cluster now, we can increase their number to a maximum of 350 – we can't recycle any more. And for the ecosystem to live and breathe, thousands of startups must arise every year. This means that Skolkovo needs to be replicated many times."
At G.P.Morgan Healthcare–2015, Russian companies were present mainly as listeners discovering new connections in the pharmaceutical industry. The event is being held for the 33rd time by the largest investment banks in the United States, led by G.P.Morgan, in order to determine industry strategies. Among the speakers were Francis Collins, Director of the US National Institutes of Health, Ezekiel Emanuel, senior adviser to Barack Obama during the sensational healthcare reform, and former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. One representative of the Russian pharmaceutical community entered the official program as part of the panel "Private Companies". Vasily Ignatiev, CEO of the R-Pharm Group of companies, told Big Pharma about plans to create a global Russian pharmaceutical company.
The delegation of the Skolkovo Foundation also arrived at the double conference with its tasks. While Gelena Lifshits was engaged at the Biotech Showcase in searching for foreign startups that could come to Russia under the Soft Landing program, become Skolkovo residents, bring with them the drugs and technologies we lack and, together with our scientists, raise the emerging Russian biotech, Kirill Kai at G.P.Morgan Healthcare negotiated with pharmaceutical companies that would undertake to place research centers on the Russian territory or otherwise participate in the development of biomedical infrastructure for Russian startups.
A number of agreements have been reached. About ten international teams with projects mainly in the field of bioinformatics have expressed their interest in the Russian market: the reputation of the Russian IT played a role. In addition, the Indian Glenmark Pharmaceuticals is ready to engage in targeted selection of projects from Skolkovo residents, as well as potentially consider establishing its own research center in Russia. Charles River Laboratories, specializing in the cultivation of model laboratory animals for clinical trials of new drugs, has agreed to help prepare the appropriate infrastructure in our country. And the company 23andMe, famous for genetic analyses that shed light on the origin of ancestors and predisposition to hereditary diseases, has entered into negotiations on the access of Russian startups to its impressive database, which includes up to a million units of human genotypes. This is a direct embodiment of the idea of Big Data: with such a wealth of information, it costs nothing to quickly select a cohort for any clinical study on genomic defects.
"Russian biotechnologies are moving forward step by step," says Kirill Kayem. "This is a slow movement, but the speed is determined by the specifics of the industry. The duration of any biomedical projects is on average 7-10 years. We are facing a serious challenge. The Skolkovo Foundation has given impetus to many positive processes. But they need to be developed, despite the crisis phenomena in Russia and in the world. This is a strategic investment. If now the state seriously reduces the level of their support due to current financial difficulties, the Russian biomed will again lose the pace of development, and by the end of the crisis, based on the duration of the cycles of biological projects, we will again be in a hole. Skolkovo should become a crystallization point, an initiating center, but we need to strive for a system that has a much larger scale."
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru19.01.2015