IonExpress  Shiva  Portonovo  (EL)  Jason  Poulos  (M)  Jacob  Schmidt  (PI)  

Govt  ctrs  

One  Time  Instrument  

Recurring  Consum.  

Direct,  partner  

Direct  

Distributors  

Fast  

Low  cost  

Inst.   Inj.  mold  

IP,  cells  

Inst.  mfrs.  

Inj.  mold  

Reprod.  Assay  dev  

Install/demo  

Easy  to  use,  

new  targets  

low  run  cost  

Low  cost  

Beta  Feedback  

Winning  KOLs  

Cells  

assembly   One  Time  warranty  

Recurring    Maint  

Recurring    Train.  

Recurring  Software  

S/M  Pharma  

L  Pharma  

CROs/  Univ  Labs  

v  

Service  

Who  we  have  talked  to  

Yoke  Tanaka,  CEO,  Tecella  Doug  Krafte,  CSO,  Icagen  Glenn  Kirsch,  ChanTest  CEO,  Small  Pharma  (confidential)  Sr.  VP  Research  +  3  scientists,  Illumina  

Not  interested  in  IC  screening,  wanted  tech  for  sensors  

Dongxian  Zhang,  Burnham  Institute  Jim  Hall,  UCI  Craig  McKay,  GSK  

Channel  partner  instruments  are  sold  direct  

Consumables  off  of  company  websites  Instruments  through  sales  reps  

 Yoke  Tanaka,  CEO  Tecella  

Tecella  is  a  multichannel  patch  clamp  amplifier  mfr    Excited  about  our  platform  and  have  loaned  us  an  amp.  Presumably  they'd  like  to  develop  a  new  market.  Expressed  an  interest  in  partnering;  Tecella  would  provide  amp  and  whole  instrument  system  would  be  sold  by  us  or  them  or  both.    

Tecella  sells  amps  through  a  traditional  sales  channel      One  issue  was  other  APC  mfrs  Tecella  has  sold  to  make  own  software.    

For  us  to  do  would  be  big  undertaking  and  out  of  our  expertise.    There  is  an  academic  in  the  UK  with  his  own  software  and  he  supports  Tecella  amps.  Perhaps  this  software  could  be  licensed.  

Since  our  application  is  intended  to  be  replication  of  APC  data,  and  Tecella  makes  multichannel  APC  amps  already,  it  seems  that  we  wouldn't  need  much  modification  to  the  hardware.    

Customer  Doug  Krafte,  CSO  Icagen  

Icagen  is  a  Med/Sm  Pharma  specializing  in  ion  channel  drugs.    Their  e-­‐phys  platforms  are  IonWorks,  Patch  XPress,  and  PC      Not  concerned  about  inst.  cost-­‐  ~$500K  is  standard.    

Expensive  consumables  are  a  killer.  Extremely  concerned  w/running  costs  and  cost/dp  

Two  opportunities  for  technology:  1)  in  HTS,  data  from  opt.  assays  often  doesn't  match  PC.  If  a  reliable  HTS  ephys  platform  was  available,  it  would  be  great.  2)  Sometimes  APC  and  PC  don't  match!  So  even  a  med  throughput  soln  with  better  data  could  be  viable.  (This  was  a  little  bit  surprising  to  me.)  He  is  definitely  interested  in  trying  our  technology.  Importance  of  validation.    We  have  IC50's  within  30%  of  the  lit.  and  industry  looks  to  be  within  **a  factor  of  three**  so  we  are  good.    Keep  validating  and  adoption  will  come  if  we  can  deliver  cost  and  throughput.    

Customer  Glenn  Kirsch:  Sr.  Dir.  of  Pharmacology,    ChanTest  

Biggest  impact  is  novel  targets  (cannot  be  targeted  by  APC)  Intracellular  ion  channels,  IP3,  ryanodine  receptors,  mitochondrial  channels  

 Current  pain  points  are  cost  and  cell  culture  

HTS  plagued  by  high  consum.  cost  ($150-­‐$200  per  plate).  If  we  get  to  $15-­‐$50  we  could  get  primary  screening.  Fluorescent  meas.  bad,  industry  trying  to  replace;  APC  too  expensive.      

Cell  culture  reduces  efficiency.  Eliminating  cell  culture  is  a  huge  plus.  Path  to  Adoption    

Publish  papers  Early  stage  screening  open  to  new  technologies  since  nothing  works  anyway    When  we  are  around  2000  dp/day  Chantest  willing  to  do  full  validation,  maybe  earlier  for  new  targets.  

 

Customer  Confidential  (Local  small  pharma  company)  

Have  a  difficult  target;  current  tech  not  well  suited.  Must  use  a  host  of  assays.    Interested  in  providing  us  with  target  to  validate.    

If  works  then  they  would  be  willing  to  try  us.    They  are  very  small  and  strapped  for  cash  so  they  could  only  purchase  low  cost  instruments.  They  could  use  a  service  or  rent  the  machine.    

Ease  of  use  is  very  attractive.  They  would  consider  a  48  simultaneous  measurement  sites  with  >90%  success  a  great  achievement  and  willing  to  use.    They  understand  the  adoption  problems  we  have  and  are  willing  to  help  validate  the  technology  at  a  lower  throughput.    

Customers  Craig  McKay,  Sr.Scientist/Investigator  GSK  

Their  e-­‐phys  measurements  are  "end-­‐point"  analyses  way  further  down  the  discovery  pipeline  In  the  past  GSK  has  partnered  with  start-­‐up  companies  to  bring  forward  promising  technologies.      They  want  vendor  supported,  turn-­‐key  solutions.        

Jim  Hall,  Professor  UCI  Thinks  technology  is  very  exciting  and  would  be  willing  to  use  a  lower  throughput  machine  (8  channels)  in  his  studies.    Data  quality  is  the  most  important  thing  for  him.    Would  like  to  see  additional  features  like  perfusion  during  recording.    

Dongxian  Zhang  ,  Director  e-­‐phys  group  Burnham  Institute  They  are  very  interested  in  using  new  technologies.    Major  pain  point  was  throughput  with  data  quality,  they  want  both.    Cost  was  somewhat  of  an  issue.    If  we  could  provide  a  demo  inst  then  they  could  host  it.  They  wanted  to  see  data/publications  first.    

 

Customer/New  application?  Group  at  Illumina  

Pain  Points:  Easy  of  use,  Reliability  Business  Model:  Service  

The  meeting  included  the  Senior  VP  of  Research  and  3  scientists.    They  are  working  on  a  new  DNA  sequencing  technology  that  may  require  stable  bilayers.  They  have  invested  over  $40M  in  a  protein  engineering  company,  Oxford  Nanopores,  toward  this  goal.    They  were  very  concerned  about  ease  of  use  and  reliability  of  a  bilayer  platform.  Cost  did  not  really  come  up  that  much  since  this  was  a  very  research  oriented  conversation.    They  were  interested  in  the  platform  and  tried  to  get  additional  scientific  knowledge  from  the  meeting.  They  are  potentially  interested  in  a  CRO  type  of  agreement  where  we  would  handle  the  bilayer  development  but  this  was  not  very  concrete  at  all.    It  became  more  of  an  information  meeting  where  they  were  probing  the  technology  and  what  it  can  do.    

Takeaways  

Strong  interest  from  possible  channel  partner  

sold  directly  by  them    New  product  line?-­‐  med  throughput  that  gives  better  data  than  APC  Our  IC50  data  is  already  in  line  for  adoption,  just  need  more  of  it  Inst  cost  not  a  concern  for  big  pharma  

All  costs  are  concern  for  small  pharma  and  Univs.  earlyvangelist