The Incheon Creative Economy Innovation Center held the ‘2023 1st Half BiiG WAVE Investment Explanation Meeting (BiiG WAVE IR)’ at Holiday Inn Incheon Songdo on the 20th.
The Big Wave IR event is part of the activation project for the ‘BiiG WAVE’ a investment attraction platform based on the Incheon BiiG WAVE Fund established in 2021 as the first of its kind in local governments nationwide. Every year, 20 promising startups are selected to participate in the investment attraction IR event, and for the first half of this year, 10 companies, with a competitive ratio of 20:1, were chosen.
At this event, five promising startups in the bio-convergence field took the stage to conduct IR pitching.
Astrogen (Representative: Hwang Soo-kyung) is a company developing and selling new drugs for rare neurological disorders. They showcased their progress by completing Phase 2 clinical trials after two and a half years and gaining approval for the clinical trial plan (IND) for domestic Phase 3 clinical trials for autism spectrum disorder in June this year, receiving positive responses from industry insiders.
ABLE Labs (Representative: Shin Sang) is a company creating automation robots to address the reproducibility, accuracy, and precision issues in bio experiments. Their track record of supplying products to Samsung BioLogics and the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology has increased investors’ expectations.
Baobab AiBio (Representative: Lee In-sang) is a company conducting new drug research and development using a structure-based platform. They lead new drug development by introducing the first-ever new drug development-dedicated cryo-electron microscope in Korea.
INEXOPLAT (Representative: Kim Sung-hwan) is a company developing exosome-based immune cancer therapy targeting rare solid tumors. They demonstrated a high level of competitiveness compared to existing immune checkpoint inhibitors by enhancing immune activity within tumor microenvironments, including pancreatic cancer, according to animal testing results.
VS pharmTech (Representative: Park Shin-young) is a company developing radiation-sensitive agents that show enhanced anti-cancer effects when used in combination. They were selected for this year’s baby unicorn and scale-up TIPS programs and recently achieved a significant milestone by receiving clinical Phase 2 IND approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
On August 10th, the IR pitching of five companies in the innovation technology sector is scheduled to continue at COEX in Seoul.
Center Director Lee Han-seop said, “In the future, our center will spare no effort in providing human and material support to ensure that the 10 companies selected through the BiiG WAVE project can successfully attract investments.” He also expressed his hope for many participants in the upcoming 2nd half IR event scheduled to take place in Seoul next month, supporting the growth of promising startups.
Source/Reference: Platum (https://platum.kr/)