At a Partnering Week event held 14 October in Paris, Genopole Chief Executive Gilles Trystram welcomed about a hundred start-ups, investors and industrials, all united around a common objective: accelerating biotech innovation for health and the environment (nutrition, cosmetics, energy, biomaterial, etc.). From Business Development Director Laurence Lacroix-Orio, the attendees learned about Upscale Bio, an upcoming Genopole accompaniment program for businesses on the path to bio-industrialization and commercialization.
For its 2024 edition and for the first time, Partnering Week took the form of a hybrid event, with one day of in-person activities followed by two days of videoconferences. This new format increased the event’s impact, allowing a larger range of actors to benefit from its agenda and spontaneous interactions.
A pitch competition
A pitch competition was held throughout the in-person day to put a spotlight on start-ups accompanied by Genopole and those accompanied by the event’s partners: the incubator Spartners by Servier & BioLabs and the Paris-Saclay public research incubator Incuballiance.
The competition’s winners were named in two categories:
- 🏆 In the Environmental Impact category, it was the pitch by Samuel Dubruque, Global Bioenergies‘ administrative and financial director, that earned the first prize.
Gilles Trystram and Dynergie‘s Sylvaine Ravier presented him with a €5000 prize in the form of access to personalized accompaniment by Genopole for the company.
Genopole expresses its sincere thanks to the members of the Genopole team and the representatives from Oréal, Avril, ECBF and AFI Ventures who constituted the jury, and congratulates all of the start-ups participating in this category: Synanthra, MicroXpace, Amatera, Carembouche, DNTech, Mycellium technologies, Proteme, Global Bioenergies and Novobiom. - 🏆 In the Health category Irina Gbalou,won first prize for her pitch on Ispiron, the start-up she heads and founded with Ahmed Said. Genopole Deputy Director David Bodet and Georges Da Violante from Servier presented Ispiron’s prize of €5000 worth of Genopole’s personalized accompaniment for the young company.
Genopole also warmly thanks the Health jury, composed of Genopole’s program manager and representatives from Servier, Iron Hands and Spartners, and equally congratulates the category’s competing start-ups: Adlin sciences, Iktos, Deltawave, Innobiomil, Ispiron, Biohive, Alga Biologics, Algenscribe, ByORNA, BCV Care, Phairilab, Synaptys, SE Therapeutics, Vitropep, CGenetix and Felome.
Start-ups speak on their acquired visibility and contracts
A laureate in the Shaker and Gene.iO programs, Cécile Nait-Meddour, speaks about getting a spotlight on her company strong>BioHive, a specialist in skin organoids for active ingredients testing and in vitro disease modeling. “Partnering Week gave us an opportunity to sit down face-to-face with investors and commercial entities, with whom we may be able to build partnerships. It’s interesting to be able to benefit from such in-person encounters, which make it much easier to build trustful, solid and constructive relationships. These initial contacts, continued in videoconferences, are promising upstream of our next fund raising campaign“.
Susana Fiorentino, CEO of Phairilab, an innovative start-up mining the plant biodiversity of Columbia to innovate in biotechnologies aimed at tumors with mitochondrial mediation.
“Partnering Week was very useful for me. I had several chances to exchange information, particularly with companies in the fields of health and cosmetics. Those discussions will serve to speed my R&D. I signed an NDA with a large French company specialized in the production of dietary supplements and cosmetic ingredients, with the objective of advancing the commercialization of one of our high-quality ingredients. It’s reassuring to have these signs of interest toward our innovation, which is targeted at not only the treatment of inflammatory diseases (cancers, respiratory diseases, etc.) but also the market for medicinal cosmetics. This was the first time I’ve pitched outside of Colombia. Preparing for it with the Genopole team gave me confidence and taught me how to capture the attention of the corporations and investors present for the pitch“.
With Partnering Week, Genopole continues to confirm its role as a catalyst in the biotech ecosystem, and as a crossroads for its accompanied start-ups and its network of corporations and investors.
These meetings and information exchanges are pathways to commercial partnerships or financial agreements that act as reliable motors for the emergence of innovations needed to decarbonize French industry and ensure health & nutrition independence for the country.
Partnering Week in numbers
Day of in-person event
70 Scheduled B2B meetings involving 82 participants:
- 44 start-uppers
- 15 investors
- 9 industrials
- 14 people working in universities, institutions, research laboratories, consultancy firms, furnishers
Videoconferences
56 virtual meetings involving:
- 51 start-ups including 4 from Incuballiance and Spartners
- 49 investors
- 10 corporations
Or, in all, close to 130 meetings, not mentioning the numerous spontaneous encounters during the in-person event.
