Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN) today announced a five-year, platinum sponsorship of the QB3@953 life sciences incubator to accelerate the development of new therapies to improve human health. The shared laboratory space at QB3@953 was created to help high-potential life science and biotech startups overcome a key obstacle for many early stage organizations - access to laboratory infrastructure.
As part of the sponsorship, Amgen launched two "Amgen Golden Ticket" awards, providing each winner with one year of lab space at the QB3@953 life sciences incubator, additional facility benefits and connections to Amgen's scientific and business leaders.
The 2016 Amgen Golden Ticket winners, Mission Bio and SiteOne Therapeutics, were chosen by a team of scientific leaders who evaluated the strength and novelty of the scientific rationale, subject matter expertise, and business plan viability.
"The QB3@953 Amgen Golden Ticket award supports our research and development strategy to fund early-stage innovation in the biotech hubs of San Francisco and Cambridge, Massachusetts," said Flavius Martin, vice president of Research, Inflammation and Oncology at Amgen. "It's critical to the future of healthcare to support promising scientific entrepreneurs. It's rewarding to be part of the energy and enthusiasm of scientific entrepreneurs in this early stage, and to help accelerate the momentum of advancements in human health."
Amgen also supports the LabCentral incubator adjacent to Amgen's Cambridge Research and Development center.
"We are delighted to facilitate the connection with Amgen, one of the world's leading biotechnology companies, with the entrepreneurs at QB3@953," said Doug Crawford, managing director at QB3@953. "Being chosen as the Amgen Golden Ticket winner brings a prestige that resonates with the scientific community in addition to the lab resources, scientific and business expertise that Amgen provides."
"The leadership and scientists of SiteOne Therapeutics are honored to receive the Amgen Golden Ticket award," said John Mulcahy, co-founder and vice president of research at SiteOne Therapeutics. "The vision and entrepreneurial spirit of Amgen is remarkable, both in helping to provide resources to innovative new companies like ours, and in continuing to fuel development of cutting-edge medicines and research through programs like the Amgen Golden Ticket. We are proud to have the significance of our science and the work that we are doing to develop novel therapeutics for chronic and acute pain without the danger and side effects of opioids recognized by such a strong leader in the biopharmaceutical industry."
"The Amgen Golden Ticket award will accelerate our development of high throughput single-cell genomic applications in immuno-oncology," said Charlie Silver, CEO at Mission Bio. "We are excited by this partnership with Amgen, which will offer support for extending our platform into applications that have high potential for clinical impact."
About the Winners
Mission Bio is innovating technologies to analyze single cells within complex biological systems, revealing critical information not observable from bulk sample analysis. With proprietary microfluidic droplet technology, Mission Bio is developing research tools that allow high-throughput, single-cell nucleic acid characterization across a variety of research applications, including oncology and immunology.
SiteOne Therapeutics was founded based on technology invented at Stanford University that represents a potential advancement in the treatment of acute and chronic pain. The company's therapeutic candidates are highly-selective sodium ion channel 1.7 (Naᵥ1.7) inhibitors patterned on naturally occurring small molecules. Given the critical role that Naᵥ1.7 plays in the generation and conduction of pain signals, combined with the urgent need for new, non-opioid pain therapies, SiteOne is focused on advancing its lead product candidates for the treatment of moderate to severe pain.
About QB3@953
As a life-science incubator, QB3@953 enables startups to successfully launch and grow their company. The shared laboratory space facilitates an efficient and cost-effective setup for scientist and entrepreneurs. QB3@953's state-of-the-art facility in San Francisco is equipped with everything an organization needs, from day one, including a team of scientists and investors at Mission Bay Capital to provide vital mentorships and connections. The move-in-ready laboratory space is designed specifically to suit early-stage-startups, complete with the latest equipment available to use immediately. With QB3@953 startups can move faster and further, on less capital. They stay focused on their science by not having to worry about the facility.
About Amgen
Amgen is committed to unlocking the potential of biology for patients suffering from serious illnesses by discovering, developing, manufacturing and delivering innovative human therapeutics. This approach begins by using tools like advanced human genetics to unravel the complexities of disease and understand the fundamentals of human biology.
Amgen focuses on areas of high unmet medical need and leverages its expertise to strive for solutions that improve health outcomes and dramatically improve people's lives. A biotechnology pioneer since 1980, Amgen has grown to be one of the world's leading independent biotechnology companies, has reached millions of patients around the world and is developing a pipeline of medicines with breakaway potential.