Top 10 Hits BioNorth’s 11th

---

By Tim Lougheed

Everyone loves a top 10 list, and participants in Canada’s international biotechnology and life sciences conference and exhibition are no exception. BioNorth is now in its 11th year, and for many people one of the highlights is the annual finalist list of Canada’s Top 10 Life Science Companies, which was introduced in 1999.

Presented to growth-oriented biotechnology, biomedical, health or agricultural technology companies, this distinguished list of recipients is chosen by an independent panel of Canadian and U.S. venture capital experts, and each company makes a 15-minute presentation on the first day of the conference.

The audience includes potential investors and partners, as well as licensing executives covering multinational interests. Canada’s Top 10 alumni also have the opportunity to network with key business executives at special meetings and events held in conjunction with biotechnology conferences throughout the year.

Solid presentations can reap big rewards, according to Cristi Cooke, who handles marketing and communications for the Ottawa Life Sciences Council (Ottawa, ON), which hosts BioNorth. Over the years since the awards began, she estimates, the winning firms have collectively pulled in no less than $400 million of venture capital and public market financing.

Such a tangible result doesn’t surprise Dana Ono, PhD, managing director, Life Sciences, for VIMAC Milestone Medica Fund in Boston, Mass. As one of the judges for this year’s awards, he appreciates how important it could be for a firm to be showcased to the BioNorth audience in this way.

“It’s a validation of sorts for the company, a quickie due diligence,” he says.

Ono adds that the judging process is decidedly more limited than the comprehensive review an organization like VIMAC would typically carry out, since he and the other judges work under a very tight time restriction using only the materials that each candidate has submitted for the award. Nevertheless, he enjoys the sense of participating in a “reverse elevator pitch,” whereby he must make a rapid assessment as to which candidates most deserve to be honoured.

And while companies are generally ranked on standard criteria, such as the nature of the product, prospective markets or current capitalization, Ono admits he is still occasionally struck by a “gee whiz” response when he encounters something utterly original or especially promising.

“The quality of the business plans was very high,” he says, referring to this year’s crop of entries. “These 10 — and certainly the ones that are in the top four or five — are world-class.”

He finds the list especially interesting in the context of Ottawa, a still-young biotechnology centre he dubs “the wild and woolly west.”

“What’s cool is when you see pockets like Ottawa coming out,” he observes. “The energy level’s good, the spirit is good.”

In fact, three of this year’s Top 10 are based in Ottawa: one of them (Zelos Therapeutics Inc.) even having made the same list last year. Cooke notes that several companies have remained on the list for two or even three years — another factor in helping them attract investors. In the last four years alone, seven companies have made such repeat appearances in the Top 10.

Canada’s Top 10 Life Science Companies Competition is sponsored by Borden Ladner Gervais LLP (BLG), a full-service national law firm with more than 650 lawyers, intellectual property agents, and other professionals in six offices across the country, making BLG Canada’s third largest-law firm.

In order to qualify for the Top 10, companies must be incorporated in Canada, with a head office in Canada. They can be either a private or public company, and they must have a market capitalization of no more than $150 million. They must also be seeking strategic alliances or financing on the order of $2 million to $50 million. Finally, they must fall into one of two categories: Early Stage (in their 1st or 2nd round of financing) or Emerging and Later Stage (in mezzanine or later stage financing).


This year’s finalists are as follows:

Early Stage companies

Emerging and Later Stage