April 29, 2019 | Jola Glotzer
Enzyme by Design Pitches Perfect!
Woohoo! A start-up led by a CBC Awardee Arnon Lavie, UIC — Enzyme by Design — wins the 2019’s MedCity INVEST Pitch Perfect Contest!
Competing with a total of 42 start-up teams, Chicago-based Enzyme by Design took first place in BioPharma category! Enzyme by Design has a lead program with promising preclinical activity in models of acute lymphoblastic leukemia and pancreatic cancer with fewer toxic side-effects. Company CEO, Arnon Lavie, UIC, has many ties to CBC; he’s won three CBC Awards: an Accelerator (2018), a Catalyst (2015) and an HTS Award (2013). In addition, in 2018, Arnon helped organize the 16th Annual CBC Symposium, “A New Age of Structural Biology: Structure Meets Dynamics.” When sharing the great news with CBC’s Jim Audia about Enzyme by Design winning the MedCity INVEST pitch contest, Arnon stated “This was a team effort, and the CBC definitely plays an important part in our success. We are aware of this, and acknowledge the CBC’s contribution.” “We at CBC are proud to have helped in advancing your efforts and appreciate your acknowledgement of our role in that success,” was Jim’s reply. The entire CBC team joins in congratulations!
Here are the winners from 2019’s MedCity INVEST Pitch Perfect Contest
This year’s edition of the Pitch Perfect competition involved dozens of live pitches at the MedCity News INVEST conference in Chicago. Here are the startups who came out on top.
MedCityNews | by KEVIN TRUONG | April 25, 2019
Picture: Getty Images, Oat_Phawat
MedCity News and Mid-America Healthcare Investors Network hosted the sixth edition of the Pitch Perfect Contest at the annual INVEST conference in Chicago on April 23-24. This year’s competition was especially fierce, with companies moving through a stringent application process for the chance to pitch live during the event and get some face time with some of the top investors in the country.
The 42 finalist companies competed across five tracks: Diagnostics, Health IT, Health Services, Biopharma and Medical Devices.
Congratulations to the following winners of the MedCity Pitch Perfect contest.
Diagnostics: Odin Technologies
Odin Technologies is a Chicago-based startup that is developing a non-invasive tool for diagnosing and monitoring compartment syndrome in trauma patients. The company’s Valkyrie diagnostic offers a simple way to detect and track tissue perfusion and avoid unnecessary fasciotomies.
Medical Devices: CorInnova
Houston-based CorInnova has developed a soft, robotic, bi-ventricular cardiac-assist device to give short-term cardiac assistance to patients with heart failure. It is designed to eliminate blood contacting adverse events associated with existing cardiac assist devices and promote heart recovery.
From left: MedCity News Editor in Chief Arundhati Parmar, Enzyme by Design CEO Arnon Lavie and MHIN President Dennis Depenbusch. (Source: MedCityNews)
BioPharma: Enzyme by Design
Enzyme by Design is a pre-clinical stage company with a humanized enzyme therapy for treatment of the orphan disease adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia. With its lead biologic, EbD-1117, the Chicago-based company hopes to help patients achieve cancer remission without the toxic side effects of current therapies.
Health IT: NeuroFlow
Philadelphia-based NeuroFlow is a healthcare technology and analytics company enabling behavioral health access and engagement across the continuum of care. The company combines validated techniques, data science, and behavioral economics to support patients in their daily lives and help providers manage and engage their population.
Health Services: Optonome
Philadelphia-based Optonome allows providers to start and manage their own home health agencies through its technology platform, which combines communication, training and management features to ease the significant administrative burden and make it possible for clinicians to become entrepreneurs.
Source:
Adapted (with modifications) from MedCityNews, by Kevin Truong, published on April 25, 2019.
Featured CBC Community member(s):
Arnon Lavie, UIC
- CBC Accelerator Award (2018):
▸ Increasing the in vivo Stability of L-asparaginase through Interactions with HAS
PI: Arnon Lavie (UIC) - 16th Annual CBC Symposium (2018):
▸ A New Age of Structural Biology: Structure Meets Dynamics
Arnon Lavie (UIC) — Symposium Organizer - CBC Catalyst Award (2015):
▸ Role of Dynamics in the Structure and Function of Intrinsically Metastable Proteins
PIs: Michael Caffrey (UIC), Arnon Lavie (UIC) and Balaji Manicassamy (UChicago) - CBC HTS Award (2013):
▸ Selective Inhibitors Between Pathogenic and Non-Pathogenic Bacterial Enzymes
PIs: Arnon Lavie (UIC), Wayne Anderson (NU), Michael Caffrey (UIC)
ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN THE PAST ABOUT THE FEATURED CBC COMMUNITY MEMBER(S):
April 1, 2014
▸ High-Throughput Screen Promises to Combat C. difficile