UNITY Biotechnology is developing therapeutics to extend healthspan by slowing, halting or reversing diseases of aging. UNITY`s initial focus is on creating senolytic medicines to selectively eliminate senescent cells and thereby treat age-related diseases, such as osteoarthritis, eye diseases and pulmonary diseases.
CorMedix Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing therapeutic products for the prevention and treatment of infectious and inflammatory diseases The Company is focused on developing its lead product Neutrolin®, a novel, non-antibiotic antimicrobial solution designed to prevent costly and dangerous bloodstream infections associated with the use of central venous catheters, currently in a Phase 3 clinical trial enrolling patients undergoing chronic hemodialysis. Such infections cost the U.S. healthcare system approximately $6 billion annually and contribute significantly to increased morbidity and mortality. Neutrolin has FDA Fast Track status and is designated as a Qualified Infectious Disease Product, which provides the potential for priority review of a marketing application by FDA and allows for five additional years of QIDP market exclusivity in the event of U.S. approval. It is already marketed as a CE Marked product in Europe and other territories. In parallel, CorMedix is leveraging its taurolidine technology to develop a pipeline of antimicrobial medical devices, with active programs in surgical sutures and meshes and topical hydrogels. The company is also working with top-tier researchers to develop taurolidine-based therapies for rare pediatric cancers.
Cajal Neuroscience is a drug discovery company focused on neurodegenerative disease.
Appia Bio is an early stage biotechnology company based in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 2020, Appia Bio is focused on discovering and developing engineered allogeneic cell therapies across a broad array of indications with a scalable technology platform that increases access for patients. With its ACUA (Appia Cells Utilized for Allogeneic) technology platform, Appia Bio leverages the biology of lymphocyte development with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) and T-cell receptor (TCR) gene engineering to generate CAR-engineered invariant natural killer T (CAR-iNKT) cell subtypes from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs).
Protagonist Therapeutics is a biotechnology company pursuing the discovery and development of target oral peptides as well differentiated alternatives to antibodies, and also as new chemical entities (NCEs) against those targets and life threatening diseases for which suitable small molecule and/or biologic options are not available. Peptides typically suffer from limitations of poor proteolytic stability and therefore find scarce therapeutic utility that is largely limited to ‘injectable drugs’. Protagonist’s technology platform is aimed at overcoming these restrictions and expanding the scope of peptide therapeutics to address unmet needs. Specific emphasis is placed on identifying ‘orally stable’ scaffolds and/or engineering oral stability characteristics onto them. The platform has been optimized over the years and involves synergistic integration of rational drug design, diversity oriented computational tools, phage display libraries, recombinant peptide expression, ex vivo oral stability methods, and peptide/medicinal chemistry techniques. This activity has led to the identification of ‘privileged scaffolds’ with favorable oral stability characteristics. Furthermore, the technology platform is well suited both for de novo discovery against a target and optimization around a given chemical starting point.