Beyond Biotech podcast 38: Hello Tomorrow Global Summit

1:27 Labiotech.eu news
2:38 Allogenica
12:06 Helex
15:51 FreezeM
19:55 MediSieve

The Hello Tomorrow Global Summit took place in Paris last week (March 8-10), and we feature interviews with four of the participants.

Our guests this week are: FreezeM CEO and co-founder, Dr. Yuval Gilad; Allogenica CEO and co-founder Inna Menkova; George Frodsham, founder and CEO of MediSieve; and Poulami Chaudhuri, co-founder, and CEO of Helex Bio.

Hello Tomorrow

The 8th edition of the Hello Tomorrow Global Summit 2023 welcomed more than 3,000 people to the forefront of deep tech. There were hundreds of meetings, presentations and exhibitors in attendance, showcasing science in action - including many biotech and biopharma companies.

The Grand Winner of the Hello Tomorrow Global Challenge 2023 was Sweetch Energy, but a biotech company came in third, Allogenica. 

Allogenica also won the Medical Biotech & Pharmaceuticals category.

Allogenica

Created in January 2022, Allogenica is a French-headquartered startup developing universal cell therapies to treat certain forms of blood cancer (leukemia, lymphoma). 

It recently completed its first fundraising of €500,000 ($530,000) in order to continue its development towards an approach to industrializing the process. 

The startup, led by Inna Menkova, and assisted by PULSALYS, aims to offer a ready-to-use, less expensive and safer treatment, in order to treat more patients with blood cancers.

Helex

Helex, based in India, is a biotech with a platform built on proprietary bioinformatics and AI powered systems to identify unique sequences on the gene. The pre-clinical stage biotech company unlocks epigenetics and 3D genome structures through data and machine learning to design high precision gene-editing systems.

The company’s platform enables the design of appropriate gene editing apparatus. It prevents editing in unwanted tissues in cases of vector biodistribution through a Double Lock Safety system - tissue-specific vector modifications (first lock) combined with Hele-GUIDE tissue specific guide RNA (second lock) for greater safety. 

MediSieve

MediSieve is a U.K.-based start-up that has developed magnetic blood filtration, a platform therapy that enables the physical removal of specific substances from the bloodstream of patients. It can be used as a direct treatment, to increase the safety and efficacy of other therapies, or to enable personalized medicine. 

The company is a spin-off from University College London.

FreezeM

FreezeM is an Israel-based company founded in 2018 that provides insect breeding and post-breeding solutions. 

FreezeM has developed cutting-edge biotechnology centered on black soldier fly (BSF) breeding, helping to increase alternative protein production capacity for livestock, while at the same time salvaging scarce global farmland, decreasing ocean exhaustion, and repurposing organic waste. 

The company is reducing costs by an estimated 30% and increasing protein production capacity and efficiency by 25%. Most recently, FreezeM has been selected to join the Google Startups for Sustainable Development Program, has been ranked by Dealflow as a company to watch in the industry and raised €6.3 million in European Innovation Council (EIC) funding.