Innovation on Display Featuring Three JLABS @ Washington, DC Resident Companies

By Mark Terry
July 27, 2023

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Several Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLABS (JLABS) @ Washington, DC resident companies had the opportunity to meet and greet and make presentations at the 2023 BLUE KNIGHT™ Symposium and BIO International Convention during the beginning of June. The Blue Knight Symposium is part of Blue Knight, a joint initiative between Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLABS and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Hosted in association with the 2023 BIO International Convention, the Symposium was held in Boston from June 5-8, 2023.

Several companies that are residents at JLABS @ Washington, DC were chosen to present within the Start-Up Stadium at BIO and at the Company Showcase at the Blue Knight Symposium. Here’s a look at three of them.

Neuroene Therapeutics

Neuroene focuses on a new class of compounds found to improve mitochondrial health. These compounds are analogs of naturally occurring Vitamin K, but unlike Vitamin K, can cross the blood-brain barrier.

Sherine Chan, PhD, Co-Founder and CEO of Neuroene, told BioBuzz the company now has “a lead clinical candidate for a rare epilepsy called Dravet Syndrome, as well as Orphan Drug designation from the FDA. Our compounds have very broad-spectrum antiseizure activity and have demonstrated great activity in Parkinson’s disease animal models, as well as activity in mitochondrial disease animal models.”

Last year, the company moved to Washington, DC, and entered the JLABS and Blue Knight programs. “We have compounds for Parkinson’s and we have broad-spectrum antiseizure compounds that are potentially good as a medical countermeasure for organic phosphate nerve agents,” Chan said. It targets a mechanism that the standard-of-care treatments don’t target. It’s very fast-acting and long-acting and it also works in Parkinson’s. Neuroene participated in the Blue Knight Company Showcase, which allowed Chan to give a presentation about the company. 

The company was chosen as a BIO Start-up Stadium Finalist. This allowed the company to engage with members of the investment community, venture philanthropy groups and partners and to give a “quick pitch” to a panel of investor judges followed by live feedback.

Chan notes it was good exposure for the company, particularly because they are working to raise $10 million in a Series A fundraising for IND-enabling studies for their lead compound and a clinical trial in Australia.

“JLABS has been really wonderful,” Chan said. “The lab space is very nice, and the mentorship is great. We’ve had some really great mentors and that is one of the reasons why we went to BIO.”

Astek Diagnostics

Astek Diagnostics has developed a benchtop diagnostic device utilizing a single-use cartridge to identify bacterial infection in urine, as well as antibiotic sensitivity. Mustafa Al-Adhami, PhD, Founder and CEO of Astek, told BioBuzz, “From a urine sample, we can tell doctors if a patient has a bacterial infection, like a urinary tract infection, and then what antibiotic to give the patient. Right now, every time you go to a doctor, they give you an antibiotic, but they’re guessing what you have.”

The company recently closed on a $2 million funding round led by Wexford Science and Technology’s venture capital arm, the Wexford SciTech Venture Fund, with participation from Lyana Capital, the Maryland Momentum Fund, and the Maryland Technology Development Corp (TEDCO). The company plans to use the money to commercialize the device, dubbed Jiddu, and to pay for five clinical studies.

Astek has a laboratory at JLABS @ Washington, DC as well as in Baltimore. Al-Adhami was also a presenter in the Blue Knight Company Showcase.

Part of the company’s presence at the Symposium was networking, as well as to “talk to as many people as possible, to see if we can make our next fundraising round easier,” Al-Adhami said. “We’re building our first article, the instrument and a cartridge. We want to manufacture the first articles we could take to market.”

Al-Adhami notes that Astek is currently hiring, seeking software and mechanical engineers. In addition to building its prototype, it is “looking to sign 10 hospitals to conduct free pilots. We’re not going to charge people for that, but these 10 pilots will be our entry into the market. Ideally, those hospitals would be on the East Coast, Maryland or Washington, DC.”

He adds that JLABS has been helpful, saying, “JLABS provides resources, so they have all these mentors and people to help you. And if you have questions, they have people you can run things by. They also help you to refine your pitch and help introduce you to investors.”

VerImmune

VerImmune is an early-stage company developing a novel delivery platform called Virus-inspired Particles. Joshua Wang, PhD, Founder and CEO of VerImmune, told BioBuzz, “Using these ViPs as a delivery system, we’ve developed a first-in-class approach to cancer, whereby we are repurposing existing viral or vaccine immunity to target cancer cells. Unlike other cancer approaches, we are actually tricking the body to see cancer like chickenpox, measles and the flu.”

The company recently held a Type B pre-IND meeting with the FDA to discuss its core program, which it is calling Anti-tumor Immune Redirection (AIR), which Wang says is “a new modality, a really orthogonal approach. We went to meet the FDA as soon as we could to get some concurrence about whether this approach makes sense, to ask them about whether our manufacturing plans make sense, whether our nonclinical animal studies and toxicology made sense, and whether a Phase I trial makes sense. We got very positive feedback, and in areas where we didn’t agree, the FDA gave us clear direction on what to do. Essentially, the path is clear for us to move forward to clinical trials.”

The company also presented at BIO. Wang said, “We went to BIO for two purposes. The first is, obviously, we are looking to raise our next round, which would be used to achieve our IND milestone as well as fundraise for our Phase I clinical trial. So, I was there at BIO to have those conversations.”

The second, Wang said, was to meet with pharma company representatives to talk about the company’s ViP platform in non-oncology settings. “We reached out to a couple of pharma companies and investors to see if they were interested in co-development or some sort of partnership. As a small company, we really like the partnership model for our oncology program. With the pre-IND program, we already have two pharma partners we are working with.”

One partnership is with Fosun Pharma USA, the U.S.-based subsidiary of Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Co. VerImmune has granted Fosun an exclusive license to the lead AIR-ViP product candidate, VERI-101, with an option to license certain future AIR-ViP products for the territory of Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong and Macau Special Administration Regions and Taiwan Region. VerImmune is eligible to receive up to $125 million in total milestone payments plus tiered low-double-digit royalties on net sales in the specified territories.

The second, inked in February 2022, is a Research Collaboration with Janssen Research & Development, one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson. This collaboration utilizes VerImmune’s AIR-ViP platform to help develop new immuno-oncology therapeutics.

Wang noted, “BIO was very beneficial because I was able to secure meetings in a lot of groups, and we had, in my mind, productive conversations about what these people want to see. At the end of the day, our end users are the patients; but fundamentally, our customers are the investors of pharma. I thought it was good to get unbiased feedback about whether our program was good and whether what we were thinking was a good idea. It was valuable to get a sense of what the customers want.”

As a JLABS @ Washington, DC resident company, Wang said that he spent a lot of time ahead of BIO using its portal and using the JLABS network and other networks to determine who was attending and to set up these meetings. He also worked with representatives on honing his pitches.

These three companies were just a selection of JLABS @ Washington, DC residents that had a presence at BIO or at the 2023 Blue Knight Symposium. You can apply to become a JLABS @ Washington, DC and Blue Knight resident here. To stay up-to-date on the latest news and opportunities from JLABS and Blue Knight, subscribe to their email briefs. 

Neuroene Therapeutics, Astek Diagnostics and VerImmune are resident companies at Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLABS @ Washington, DC and Blue Knight, which unleash the potential of innovators’ early scientific discoveries by providing state-of-the-art infrastructure (lab and offices), assigning a mentor to provide guidance, offering access to the investor community, and delivering training program to support startup executives. Interested in learning more? Connect with our team to discuss incubation, collaboration, or investment opportunities.