(May 31, 2016) – Forbius (Formation Biologics) was recognized as one of the Rice Alliance 10 Most Promising Life Science Companies at the 2016 Texas Life Science Forum hosted by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, BioHouston, and Texas Healthcare and BioScience Institute. The companies were chosen by industry experts and investors.
The event is one of the largest life science venture capital conferences in the Southwest and featured more than 40 industry and investment speakers. Among more than 600 attendees were venture capitalists and other investors, entrepreneurs, industry representatives, business leaders and service providers.
About The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship
The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship is Rice University’s nationally recognized initiative devoted to the support of technology commercialization, entrepreneurship education and the launch of technology companies. It was formed as a strategic alliance of three Rice schools: the George R. Brown School of Engineering, the Wiess School of Natural Sciences and the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business. Since inception in 1999, more than 1,700 early-stage companies have presented at the 170+ programs hosted by the Rice Alliance and raised more than $3.3 billion in funding.
About Forbius
Forbius is a clinical stage company that designs and develops biotherapeutics for treatment of cancer and fibrotic diseases. Forbius’ medicines are designed to radically transform patients’ lives. Our strength is to use our knowledge of biology and diverse protein engineering technologies to design superior inhibitors of validated biological pathways.
We have particularly deep expertise in targeting Transforming Growth Factor-Beta (TGF-β) and Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF) pathways. For both of these pathways, there is a significant body of evidence validating their role as drivers of multiple life-threatening conditions. However, in the case of the EGF pathway, the majority of patients do not benefit from currently marketed EGFR inhibitors. In the case of the TGF-β pathway, no agent targeting this pathway has yet been approved. By using multiple complimentary platform technologies, Forbius’ team overcame barriers that prevented the development of effective therapeutics targeting these pathways.