Awards

Arjuna Therapeutics was recently honoured with a prestigious award at the MEET2WIN Oncology Convention in Bordeaux, France. In an event which showcased around thirty innovative projects aimed at tackling cancer, Arjuna Therapeutics received recognition for its development potential. The company was acknowledged by the investors jury, OUI Oncology Upward Investment, which consisted of twenty investors dedicated to supporting the growth of promising European companies in the field of oncology. This recognition highlights Arjuna Therapeutics' commitment to advancing cancer therapies and its transformative potential in addressing the unmet needs of cancer patients.

Arjuna Therapeutics participated in the 2020 Bio International Convention through the Igape (Galician Institute for Economic Promotion) program “Plan Foexga 2019-2020”. The conference was held virtually and took place between 8-12 June, 2020. Its primary focus was on collaboration and partnership as means to create a policy environment that enables the industry to continue to fulfill its vision of bettering the world through biotechnology innovation. The main objective of these grants is to encourage and stimulate Galician foreign trade and the internationalization of Galician SMEs. The result that is intended is to increase the base of exporting companies and consolidate the presence of Galician companies in international markets. Initiative co-financed by the European Union.

Operational Programme FEDER (ERDF – European Regional Development Fund) Galicia 2017-2020

To achieve a more competitive business network

Arjuna (NANOGAP) Therapeutics won £100K-worth of experimentation with the cloud lab. When asked about how NANOGAP plans to use Arctoris’ lab, the CEO Ross Beckenridge explained that they would use it to robotise their experiments, and specifically test how their drug compares to 20 others on 20 different types of cancer cells. “We are interested in a blood test to detect tumours that are sensitive to our drug, as well as how our drug would interact with therapies that are already in use on a cellular level,” Beckenridge said. 

Following a first stage of the competition based on proposals submitted online, BioTarget selected the 8 most promising projects, inviting them to a pitch event in London, UK. During the pitch event, the finalists will present their projects, and a panel of experienced drug discovery researchers and investors will select the three winners, who will be awarded up to $100,000 in free experimentation conducted in Europe's leading cloud lab. The eight finalists – Macromoltek, Arjuna (NANOGAP) Therapeutics, Delve Therapeutics, HOX Therapeutics, Synchrony, Arxeon, Spycombinator and CDK11B – pitched their visions to four judges in the hope of winning access to Arctoris’ cloud lab, allowing them to design and order an experiment which is carried out by a robotics platform. The judges – Sonal Patel, Oncology Lead at Johnson & Johnson Innovation Centre, Jackie Hunter, CEO of BenevolentBio, Vishal Gulati, Health Tech Investor and Tony Hickson, CBO of Cancer Research UK – took into consideration the individual start-up’s scientific and entrepreneurial approach and how the respective technologies or molecules address urgent needs in cancer therapy. 

The inaugural BioTarget Competition for speeding up the race to beat cancer had over 50 companies submit applications for new and innovation agents. Cancer is a disease that affects far too many people, with one in two being diagnosed with cancer during their lifetime. Scientific research has already changed the lives of many suffering from this disease, but there continues to be an urgent need for new breakthroughs in cancer drug development.

BioTarget directly addresses the urgent need for new drugs and treatments. The competition is directed at early-stage ventures aiming at developing new molecules for cancer treatment and is kindly supported by Cancer Research UK.

The competition was open to those seeking to further characterize or validate their drug target using cellular and molecular assays. BioTarget invited researchers from around the world to join forces to find new drugs and bring them to market faster.