Amgen Announces Golden Ticket Winners for the Year
Sponsored by Amgen, the Golden Ticket awards underwrite the cost of a lab bench for a scientist from each organization to reside in LabCentral’s open lab for one year. LabCentral is an innovative, shared laboratory space designed as a launchpad for premier high impact life-sciences and biotech startups. Amgen entered into a multi-year platinum-level sponsorship with LabCentral in late 2014.
Kernal Biologics Inc. and QurAlis were selected for the award following a “QuickPitch” event at Amgen’s Cambridge R&D and Operations facility. Kernal Biologics and QurAlis were among five companies that pitched their business plan to attendees of the event.
As one of LabCentral’s platinum sponsors, Amgen can nominate up to two early-stage companies annually to take up residence in LabCentral’s Kendall Square facilities in Cambridge, Mass.
The Golden Ticket represents one year of bench space for one scientist, including benefit of LabCentral’s shared infrastructure and services (such as conference rooms, permits, shared equipment and facilities, participation in LabCentral training modules and seminars).
Amgen scientists also provide informal mentoring. LabCentral is a first-of-its-kind shared laboratory space designed as a launchpad for high-potential life sciences and biotech startups.
“The event captured the essence of why Amgen is committed to contributing to and collaborating in the Cambridge biotech ecosystem. Not only were we evaluating ideas from five very strong startup companies advancing innovative science right in our own backyard, but we could be joined by our industry colleagues with a diverse set of backgrounds to assess the best innovations to help bring forward,
” said John Dunlop, vice president of Neuroscience at Amgen.Kernal Biologics Inc. develops therapeutic messenger RNAs via deep learning for immuno-oncology applications. Kernal’s unique methods of sequence engineering and smart design are intended to develop a technology platform that will dramatically improve the efficacy of existing mRNA technologies.
Kernal Biologics President Yusef Erkul said Amgen’s scientific guidance combined with LabCentral’s “innovative and supportive environment” will enhance the company’s efforts to “bring safe, tolerable and efficacious mRNA medicine to patients with acute myelogenous leukemia.”
The other Golden Ticket winner, QurAlis, develops precision medicine for treatment of patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). QurAlis is currently developing therapies for three different forms of ALS with known disease mechanisms which include: a transformative device to remove toxic proteins; a drug that mediates overactive neurons and prevents them from dying; and a drug that restores a dysfunctional waste clearance system in cells.
“We are extremely excited to win the Amgen Golden Ticket,” Kasper Roet, founder and chief executive officer at QurAlis, said in a statement. “The space and facilities at LabCentral will enable QurAlis to enhance our ALS patient-derived stem cell platform, which we will use in the development of all three of our therapeutic programs. It is also an incredible testament to our team, progress and potential for developing therapies for ALS patients.”