adMare BioInnovations launches back-to-back biotech companies

adMare BioInnovations, an enterprise dedicated to building Canadian life sciences companies with partners, has launched its second company this month. 

Find Therapeutics will research G protein coupled receptors (GPCR), the largest class of drug targets. The company will initially focus on inflammatory and fibrotic diseases of the airways, liver and gastrointestinal systems. It was launched with Montreal-based CTI Life Sciences, a venture capital firm; PeptiMimesis, a France-based startup that develops and identifies peptide-based treatments; and Domain Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company with teams in France and Quebec focused on developing drug candidates targeting GPCRs.

The announcement comes a few weeks after adMare launched Neurasic, a company working on drug therapy for neurological disorders based on research conducted at The Neuro in Montreal. 

Launched in 2019, adMare was formed through a merger between the Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD) and the NEOMED Institute, a not-for-profit R&D company that supports drug discovery projects. Its goal is to find promising pharmaceutical research and provide the funding, lab access, business development expertise and scientists to turn the research into functional companies. Partnerships are a key part of its model; its launch with Neurasic included McGill University and AmorChem, an early-stage biotech venture capital fund. adMare has launched 10 companies with partners so far. 

“They're doing research to try to advance science and healthcare, but they don't have the mindset of an entrepreneur,” said Dr. Youssef Bennani, adMare's chief scientific officer and Find Therapeutic's interim CEO, speaking of the challenge researchers face in commercializing. “They don't have a true business development team in place that has a network, that has access to funding, that has access to VC groups to properly evaluate what they have in mind.” 

A year on, Bennani describes work at adMare as a “work in progress,” as the company had to go through the logistics of forming a single entity and building a strategy. Launching life sciences companies is a long-term game, as funders like adMare must consider if the research can actually turn into something over the next 10 years while providing the funding and support to researchers. 

“Both organizations are not new to corporate launching, but together, we are trying to do it better and stronger,” Bennani said, referring to CDRD and Neomed. “Venture funding is a fairly competitive business, but it doesn't have to be...working together to build companies is really important.”

adMare also supports startups it hasn’t launched, and currently has 32 startups that use its Neomed Innovation Centre lab in Montreal, with plans to expand the facility by 50,000 square feet in the fall. In July 2019, the Neomed Innovation Centre received $11.7 million in federal and provincial funding for the $25 million total expansion project that offers equipment, corporate space and funding. It has a second lab and office space in Vancouver, with about 80 people working there as adMare employees. 

Bennani said that adMare hopes to launch an accelerator by the new year, as it is currently delayed by COVID-19. 

“Our main goal is to strengthen the biopharmaceutical ecosystem in Canada, across the board, to basically be the launchpad of strength In this whole economic ecosystem and healthcare system in Canada,” said Bennani. 

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