AmorChem

AmorChem is a leading early stage venture fund dedicated to creating the next generation of biotech companies from academic research.AmorChem aims to be the premier early stage venture fund in Canada by building an active and collaborative community of biotech start-ups from academic research and fostering a new generation of passionate science entrepreneurs. The company invests mainly in projects that originate at Quebec-based universities and research centers.

The AmorChem fund model combines access to financial resources with a virtual incubator structure. The first fund of 41.2M$ was a portfolio of 24 technologies and resulted in two pharma exits and five spin-out companies. The AmorChem II Fund was launched in 2017 and as of January 2019 totalled $53.7M.

AmorChem holds the AmorChem Knock Out event, inspired by the television show Dragons’ Den, where researchers compete for $500,000 in financing. Their fifth event was hosted on April 24, 2019.

AmorChem announced in January, 2019, the closing of its first financing of a university project focused on RNA Zipcodes, short sequences of RNA that control their intracellular transport. The project is a collaboration is between Univalor, Dr Éric Lécuyer of the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (“IRCM”), Dr. Mathieu Blanchette and Dr. Jérôme Waldispühl of McGill University.

In February 2019, AmorChem II announced financing of a project on the SRSF3 target, which regulates RNA splicing, transport and gene expression and plays a role analogous to checkpoint inhibition in the innate immune system. Removal of the off-switch in the innate immune response could lead to new therapeutic approaches for neuroinflammatory diseases. The funding will support work in the laboratory of Dr. Jasna Kriz in an agreement with Université Laval and the CERVO Brain Research Centre of the CIUSSS de la Capitale Nationale.