OBIO Welcomes 12 New Bioscience Companies into the OBIO CAAP Program

TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization (OBIO®) kicked off its 2016 Capital Access Advisory Program (CAAP®) on April 13, hosted at sponsor Norton Rose Fulbright, Toronto. Twelve high potential health startup companies selected as participants in OBIO CAAP 2016, connected, introduced their technologies, learned about the benefits of the program and met with steering committee members. Companies featured a broad range of cutting edge and high impact technologies in the therapeutic, medical device and digital health space including: a smart contact lens for monitoring blood glucose, a wound monitoring smartphone application, medical device and drug therapeutics for epilepsy, therapies for age related macular degeneration (blindness), neuro-degenerative diseases and cancer.

“CAAP is a focused opportunity for early stage bioscience companies to gain access to investors, advisors and mentorship. CAAP allows companies to rapidly execute on their strategic business goals, accelerate business development and attract necessary financing to fuel company growth,” said Gail Garland, President and CEO of OBIO. “We are honoured that Norton Rose Fulbright is providing sponsorship support for OBIO CAAP 2016,” Garland added.

Jung-Kay Chiu, the national leader of Norton Rose Fulbright’s Canadian patents and IP transactions team, opened the day’s events: “We are proud to be supporting OBIO and the CAAP program, and are impressed by the high potential of this year’s CAAP Companies and OBIO’s leadership.” The Program is also supported by the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) and the Government of Ontario.

OBIO’s CAAP Companies are headquartered across Ontario from Pickering to the Greater Toronto Area to Waterloo/Kitchener and Sudbury. After the kickoff event, Amol Karnick President and CEO of KA Imaging (Waterloo, Ontario) said: “We are delighted to be part of the OBIO CAAP program and look forward to working with OBIO to accelerate both market strategy and fundraising efforts for our novel X-ray detector technology.“

BrainFx’s CEO Tracy Milner emphasized: “Through OBIO CAAP we expect to rapidly expand our existing business connections and reach our fundraising goals to support introduction of our high fidelity brain health assessment platform into the U.S. market and rapidly gain traction there.”

All of the OBIO CAAP 2016 Companies and their technologies and products are listed below:

Company	Technology / Product
Avertus Inc. (Toronto)	Cloud-based clinical EEG device with brain-state classification technology.
BrainFx (Pickering)	Digital assessment platform to measure the effects of brain disorders across the care continuum.
KA Imaging (Waterloo)	Novel dynamic digital X-ray detector with increased sensitivity, higher resolution and lower manufacturing costs.
KE2 Technologies (Sudbury)	Non-invasive monitoring for the critically ill.
Ketogen Pharma (Toronto)	Novel and more effective drugs for epilepsy.
Medella Health (Kitchener)	Smart contact lens for monitoring health bio-markers.
Oxalys Pharma (Toronto)	Oral neuroprotective drug for Huntington's disease and dementias.
Ramsey Lake Pharma (Sudbury)	Novel and more effective cancer therapy with reduced side effects.
Shift Health (Toronto)	Interactive platform designed to engage and educate patients, while instantly transforming patient-entered responses into actionable data.
Swift Medical (Toronto)	Next-generation wound care, management and prevention.
Translatum Medicus (Toronto)	Effective small molecule drug for dry age related macular degeneration.
UbiquiTech Inc. (Toronto)	Platform to identify and develop the next generation cancer therapies.

The OBIO Capital Access Advisory Program (CAAP) is a product of OBIO. It is a collaborative initiative between OBIO, industry and investors. OBIO CAAP harnesses the expertise and engagement from the Ontario health science community and life science investors and entrepreneurs from across Canada and the U.S. to accelerate growth of this important Ontario industry sector.

The Ontario Bioscience Innovation Organization (OBIO) is a not-for-profit, membership-based organization engaged in the development of an integrated health innovation economy for Ontario and one that will become a global leader in providing health technology products and services to the international marketplace. OBIO advances this goal through advocacy, promotion and strategic leadership and via collaborative partnerships with industry, academia, patients and government.

For more information please visit www.obio.ca and follow OBIO on Twitter @OBIOscience