Immvira: Immuno-Oncology: Conquering the Next Frontier

Top 10 Biotech Startups in APAC - 2020

What if a doctor could predict a heart attack before it happens and prevent it altogether? Or what if the doctor could cure a child’s cancer by using their gut bacteria? Such biotechnology solutions are already being explored, and the aim is to completely revolutionize medical care. The biological-big-data, coupled with advanced analytical tools, has led to a deeper understanding of fundamental human biology. Further, digitalization is transforming healthcare, allowing patients to document symptoms, feelings, health outcomes, and records such as radiographs and pathology images and use them as mineable data.

That being said, today, the advent of sophisticated computing technology such as AI and ML is ushering a new era of intelligent drug discovery. There has been an explosion of AI startups, and tech giants have also made advances in AI-driven biochemistry that are expected to lead new developments. Such technological advancements are creating a shift to cure rare diseases.

At this juncture, many cutting-edge biotech startups are entering the domain with advanced and integrated offerings. To help the biotechnology sector strengthen its operational capabilities and simultaneously enable growth in the industry, StartupCity has compiled this edition. The list comprises prominent organizations that are addressing issues pertinent to the biotechnology sector by implementing current trends. Besides, the magazine also includes insights from thought leaders in the sector on the industry trends, best practices, recent innovations, and their advice for the aspiring CIOs.

We present to you StartupCity’s, “Top 10 Biotech Startups in APAC – 2020.”

    Top Biotech Startups in APAC

  • Abbisko stands on the firm shoulders of its three co-founders—Dr. Xu, Dr. Hongping Yu, and Dr. Zhui Chen. Through Abbisko, the trio focuses on novel and high-potential targets to develop first-in-class or best-in-class molecular entities and has built up an extensive pipeline in target-based therapy and immune-oncology. Since its inception, Abbisko has advanced two internally discovered small molecule drug candidates into the clinical stage with ongoing trials in the U.S., mainland China, and Taiwan. The company has additionally built up an extensive discovery pipeline in oncology areas consisting of multiple candidates at IND (Investigational New Drug) enabling stage. Abbisko has also completed two strategic collaborations to strengthen its portfolios by in-licensing two clinical-stage assets from X4 Therapeutics and AstraZeneca PLC

  • AIBIOS is developing novel drugs from immunomodulation to transform patient care

  • Arbele focuses on personalized medicine based on innovative DNA sequencing/detection techniques, genetic vaccine and stem cell therapies, immune cell functions for autoimmune diseases and cancers, big data and AI in digital health, drug development and disease interception and acceleration of clinical trials and breakthrough drug approvals.The AI-CARTM and TriAxTM platforms allow new medicines equipped with multiple mechanisms of action treatments, streamlining the biomanufacturing process and reducing the cost of drug production

  • HaplnScience, a Korean biopharma company, has discovered that HAPLN1 (Hyaluronan and Proteoglycan Link Protein 1), an intrinsic human protein, plays a key role in regenerating connective tissues and maintaining homeostasis in the human body. HaplnScience has successfully developed the large-scale manufacturing process of recombinant human HAPLN1 (rhHAPLN1) and has secured preliminary but meaningful animal efficacy and safety data on rhHAPLN1 for curing diseases related to connective tissue degeneration, such as OA (Osteoarthritis), COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), skin aging, and hair loss

  • Immvira develops a broad range of anticancer therapies based on genetically engineered viruses. Immvira, a biotechnology company, develops product pipelines of the engineered oncolytic virus, which carry a single or combination of immunostimulatory agents. The various product pipelines are focused on different indications with an emphasis on drug discovery, preclinical study, and early phase 1 and phase 2 clinical trials .Immvira’s very first product in the pipeline, Intratumoral injection of oHSVT3011, is designed to use an oncolytic virus armed with IL12 and PD-1 Ab to treat cancers that are accessible by intratumoral injections. The company has developed combination therapies, where along with the localized intratumoral injection that triggers the immune response, systemic drugs such as immunotherapy, target therapy, biological therapy and chemotherapy can be administered. The various pipelines are aimed at covering all solid tumors and hematological malignancies

  • Kintaro Cells Power is a biotechnology company that is a medical supplier of the highest quality of stem cell treatment to revitalize the body and increase overall well-being. Exploiting body’s regenerative mechanism, the company cultures and manufactures KINTARO cells based on bone-marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells. This ground-breaking stem cell treatment can prevent over 300 diseases, unlike any other cell therapy in the market. The extensive benefits of KINTARO cells facilitate its use in various sectors—whether it’s diabetes or cosmetology. Kintaro stem cell treatment has been tested in over 2500 human application cases worldwide and holds zero cell rejection risk

  • NetTargets has developed a computational modeling methodology that mimics the complex biological processes to understand and analyze the causal relationships in the regulatory networks of a human body.It achieves the methodology by building mathematical models that facilitate dynamics analysis to clarify hidden feedback or crosstalk in signaling cascades in biological networks. The company has also developed its own database N-DB, N-MAP (NetTargets Mechanism Analysis Platform) to identify new novel target (set)s, and N-CAP (NetTargets Compound Analysis Platform) to predict physico-chemical properties and produce promising compound candidates for the control of the resulted targets from N-MAP. The N-MAP also constructs a far more detailed and accurate regulatory network, which enables identifying novel key targets for therapeutic strategy; both single- and multi-targets, to fix the mutated network

  • Since its inception in 2001, the firm has contributed to drug discovery and development through the research and development of reagents and diagnostics, providing a full panel of antibodies against 48 nuclear receptors as reagents and a biomarker detecting system for vascular inflammation. Perseus Proteomics has developed four different therapeutic antibodies targeting surface molecules on cancer cells to date: PPMX-T001, which targets Glypican-3 (GPC3); PPMX-T002, which targets cadherin-3 (CDH3); PPMX-T003, which targets transferrin receptor (TFR); and PPMX-T004, targeting cadherin-3 (CDH3)

  • Australian Biotherapeutics

    Australian Biotherapeutics

    A bespoke provider of live biotherapeutics

  • NuriBio


    Provides an Ultra-Specific DNA Amplification Platform for Real-time PCR