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(C) Vienna Business Agency / Tircza Podzeit

 
Dear Reader, 


It's time to celebrate the opening of the Vienna Business Agency's Startup Labs at the Vienna BioCenter. We wish all users a great start at their new premises and are happy to introduce some of them below.

Boehringer Ingelheim supports excellent life science innovation and has awarded the BI Innovation Prize Vienna to one of the Startup Labs' users. We congratulate Proxygen to this wonderful success!

Please take enough time to carefully read this special edition of our newsletter. There's a lot to be learned about innovative ideas growing in Vienna.

Are you interested in meeting our technology expert Jürgen Fuchs at the Vienna BioCenter? Get in touch to arrange an appointment. He will be available at the Startup Labs on a regular basis.

Yours,
LISAvienna
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"Vienna is one of the top five life science locations in Europe. With the opening of Startup Labs Vienna, we will be able to consistently hold our own among Europe's research leaders. With the provision of this state-of-the-art infrastructure, the start-up teams can concentrate immediately on their core tasks and get started faster." 

Peter Hanke
Vienna's Executive City Councillor of Finance, Business, Digital Innovation and International Affairs
“Proxygen´s approach to develop novel molecular “glues”, i.e. compounds that reprogram the cellular degradation machinery to eliminate disease-causing proteins is going beyond what the field is currently doing. Their combination of cellular and genetic screens with drug finding approaches and the high likelihood of translateability to innovative drugs made the application stand out.”

Guido Boehmelt
Director of Research Beyond Borders,
Boehringer Ingelheim RCV & Co KG
 
The Regional Center Vienna (RCV), part of the German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim, is responsible for over 30 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and in Asia. It is thus one of the company’s most important sites and is also a flagship enterprise in the Austrian capital. Around 2,000 people are working in medical research, production and administration on-site in Vienna. Through the BI Innovation Prize Vienna, the company supports excellent life-science innovation by paying lab and office rent to the award-winning start-up in the new space available at the Vienna BioCenter for 12 months. 

Start-ups you should remember

The Vienna Business Agency has set up affordable and flexible Startup Labs at the Vienna BioCenter. This offer is intended primarily for start-ups doing research and development in the fields of biochemistry, biomedicine, biotechnology, genetics, molecular biology and pharmaceutics.

Read on to learn more about some of the Startup Labs' first users.

Welcome at the Startup Labs!

                             PROXYGEN  
"At a:head, we apply cerebral organoids for developing drugs for brain disorders. Partner with us now."

Oliver Szolar
CEO, a:head bio AG
 
a:head bio AG, is developing next generation therapeutics for the treatment of brain disorders based on human cerebral organoids. The company follows a standard biotech business model turning private and public funding into a valuable portfolio of therapeutic assets with the main objective to improve quality of life for patients suffering from diseases of the central nervous system.
"Reach out to Ablevia to explore the power of highly selective antibody depleting compounds."

Oskar Smrzka
Founder, Ablevia biotech GmbH
 
Ablevia biotech GmbH removes disease-causing and other undesired antibodies. Ablevia's proprietary platform technology enables the development of infusible therapeutics that target harmful antibodies involved in autoimmune conditions and drug neutralizing antibodies.

"G.ST Antivirals develops metabolism-based therapies that starve the virus within the cell and thus prevent their proliferation."

Guido Gualdoni
CEO, G.ST Antivirals GmbH

G.ST Antivirals is dedicated to the development of therapies against different viruses applying an entirely novel approach of antiviral therapy. The MedUni Vienna spin-off utilizes the viral dependency on the host cell metabolism and exploits this to design specific interventions counteracting viral nutrient supply. This leads to intracellular starvation of the virus, ultimately resulting in highly impaired replication.
"Miti Biosystems: exploiting phage displayed cyclic peptide libraries."

Guntram Christiansen
Managing Director, Miti Biosystems GmbH

Miti Biosystems GmbH is specialized in the production of polycyclic peptide libraries for the discovery of peptide drugs and mimotopes. Using our patented platform technology, we apply randomization techniques on natural product scaffolds to realize their chemical space. The randomization procedure leads to several billion chemically diverse structures that are displayed on bacteriophage M13, thus enabling fast screening for substances with desired phasic-chemical properties.
"MyeloPro translates cutting-edge research into innovative therapeutics for blood diseases."

Oleh Zagrijtschuk
CEO, MyeloPro Diagnostics and Research GmbH
 
MyeloPro Diagnostics and Research GmbH is a preclinical stage biopharmaceutical company, aiming to develop innovative therapeutics for the treatment of blood diseases. The founders have cumulated unique expertise and know-how in the area of myeloproliferative neoplasms. A major milestone was entering into an exclusive, global license agreement with CeMM to develop treatments targeting mutated calreticulin. The lead asset is immunotherapy modality in preclinical development stage to treat myeloproliferative neoplasms, partnered with a global pharmaceutical company. In addition, the company provides R&D services to other companies in the field of hematology oncology.
"Welcome at Pregenerate. We are revolutionizing arthritis treatment with our organ-on-a-chip platform."

Julie Rosser
CEO, Pregenerate GmbH

At Pregenerate GmbH, we use scaleable organ-on-a-chip models to replace animal testing in pharmaceutical research for arthritis treatments. This enables pharmaceutical companies to save billions of dollars and improve the success rates of their drugs to market, in part because we can use human cells in our model.Ultimately, this same technology will allow us to stratify patients into targeted treatment subgroups, and even to inform each clinical patient directly about the best treatment for their specific arthritis needs.
"Proxygen changes the way drugs are designed. We direct 'undruggable' targets to the cellular degradation machinery." 

Matthias Brand
CEO, Proxygen GmbH

Proxygen GmbH aims to develop therapies against cancer and other life-threatening diseases by reprogramming the cellular protein quality control system. Proxygen is focused on particular small molecules called “molecular glue degraders” which induce proximity between a disease-causing protein and a ubiquitin ligase. Consequently, the target protein is ubiquitinated and directed to the proteasome for degradation. Instead of merely blocking the function of harmful proteins, molecular glue degraders enable their complete, targeted and selective elimination.
"We literally give drug development, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine a more human touch." 

Johannes Hackethal
CTO, THT Biomaterials GmbH

THT Biomaterials GmbH aims to overcome major methodological issues underlying false positive or negative results in current drug development, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine research. A new visionary platform technology is under development that will speed up research as it makes its results more realistic by replacing animal components with human components.
"QUANTRO Therapeutics introduces Transcriptional Fingerprinting, transforming the precision and scope of cell-based compound screens." 

Dieter Nachtigall
CEO, QUANTRO Therapeutics GmbH

QUANTRO Therapeutics GmbH strives to discover and develop novel therapeutics for the treatment of cancer and other diseases. The IMBA/IMP spin-off will assemble a highly innovative drug-discovery pipeline that employs time-resolved RNA sequencing and comparative transcriptomics to identify and develop drug candidates interfering with transcriptional regulators. The first focus will be on cancer-associated transcription factors, which so far have been unamenable to pharmacologic intervention.
This list is not exhaustive.

Who else is in the house?

The Startup Labs are located on level 3 in the VBC6 building. Previously, this building was home to the IMP and decades ago, radios were manufactured where cutting-edge research is carried out nowadays. 

Read on to learn more about the Startup Labs' neighbourhood.

"We provide access to latest technology and the combined expertise of 100 scientists to enable your success – take advantage of it!"

Daniele Soroldoni
Managing Director, Vienna Biocenter Core Facilities

The Vienna Biocenter Core Facilities (VBCF) enable scientists to achieve their goals by providing access to cutting-edge research infrastructure in the field of biomedical research. We keep our resources, technology, and expertise at the highest level in order to stay at the forefront of science.
Contact VBCF to benefit from the following services:

Akribes Biomedical GmbH is dedicated to the development of treatments for chronic wounds, a major health issue worldwide. We focus on a new translational drug discovery approach for the therapy of chronic wounds that is driven by systems biology. Our unique entry point takes advantage of the fact that the pathogenic drivers of wound chronicity are contained in patient material. Using patient samples we have established and patented novel assay systems which we use for compound screening, profiling and developing devices for personalized medicine.

Austrianni GmbH is a pharmaceutical company with the mission to develop therapeutics for the prevention and treatment of tuberculosis. We’ll do whatever it takes to generate new drugs for tuberculosis therapy. These drugs are either biologicals or chemicals. The unrestricted access to the powerful antibody discovery platform developed by Trianni allows Austrianni to rapidly isolate fully human antibody therapeutics. To complement the antibody drug pipeline Austrianni has implemented another revolutionary tool for the development of new antibiotics.

The Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology (GMI) was founded by the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) in 2000 to promote research excellence in plant molecular biology. It is the only international center for basic plant research in Austria and one of only very few throughout the world. Research at the GMI is carried out by ten research groups and covers many aspects of plant molecular biology, including epigenetics, cell biology, plant-pathogen interactions, developmental biology, evolutionary biology, and population genetics.

IMBA - the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology - is one of the leading biomedical research institutes in Europe focusing on cutting-edge stem cell technologies, functional genomics, and RNA biology. IMBA is located at the Vienna BioCenter, this unique vibrant cluster of universities, research institutes and biotech companies in Austria. IMBA is a subsidiary of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the leading national sponsor of non-university academic research. The stem cell and organoid research at IMBA is being funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Science and the City of Vienna.
The Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) is a leading basic research institute. Its 16 research groups of scientists from 40 countries address fundamental questions in molecular biology. Funded primarily by Boehringer Ingelheim and with unconstrained academic freedom, the IMP provides the ideal environment for curiosity-driven biomedical research. As part of Vienna BioCenter, the IMP is embedded in one of Europe’s preeminent life science hubs with 1,850 employees.
The Max Perutz Labs are a research institute established by the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna to provide an environment for excellent, internationally recognized research and education in the field of molecular biology. Dedicated to a mechanistic understanding of fundamental biomedical processes, scientists at the Max Perutz Labs aim to link breakthroughs in basic research to advances in human health. The Max Perutz Labs are located at the Vienna BioCenter, one of Europe’s hotspots for Life Sciences, and host around 50 research groups, involving more than 450 scientists and staff from 40 nations.

VBTCG has been founded by experienced entrepreneurs to support biotechnology and start-up companies with management and day-to-day processes for professional and efficient operation across all non-scientific aspects of business. We are located at the Vienna BioCenter, a prime European location for life science research and biotechnology. Our customers benefit from sharing functions and thereby having high quality and stability.

"The Vienna BioCenter is one of Europe's most dynamic hotspots in the life sciences. The Startup Labs add to this by linking excellent science with innovative businesses ideas."

Harald Isemann
Chairman of the Board, Vienna BioCenter Association

The Vienna BioCenter is a leading life sciences site, offering a unique combination of research, education, and companies on a single campus. The Vienna BioCenter covers 90,000 m2 in 14 different buildings. A campus map listing all 43 members is available here. The research institutes and biotech companies located at the Vienna BioCenter are among the world leaders in their fields. Scientists, students, and entrepreneurs come together at the Vienna BioCenter to create a highly dynamic environment with internationally competitive standards.

Are you interested in joining the Startup Labs?

We have 60 bench and 30 office workplaces available for life science start-ups in Vienna. Apply now, the co-working spaces are in great demand!
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LISAvienna is a joint life science platform operated by austria wirtschaftsservice and the Vienna Business Agency. On behalf of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Digital and Economic Affairs and the City of Vienna, LISAvienna contributes to the advancement of life sciences in Vienna.

Our news review, our outlook on future events and our list of opportunities for funding and support are not exhaustive and LISAvienna accepts no liability for potential mistakes.

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