Last Monday, February 19th, I attended my first IndieBio event. The place was packed. And the spirit in the room was chill and welcoming. I found a seat next to a biotech consultant and a developer. We were all curious to learn more about the four stars of the night -- Nivean Therapeutics, Neurocarrus, MezoMax, and Onconetics.Here’s the scoop on each start-up: Nivean Therapeutics is not reinventing the wheel, instead their therapeutic strategy works with existing chemotherapy and immunotherapy to increase their effectiveness in fighting cancer. Co-Founder Nikita Shah says, “Chemotherapy is the bedrock of cancer treatment. By turning off Hippo signaling, the cancer cell’s defenses against these treatments are weakened.” Neurocarrus is transformative. Co-Founder Ben Pavlik hopes to change the way medical providers treat chronic pain. More importantly, he hopes “to bring safe therapies to those in need.” So he developed C2C, an alternative treatment that uses small molecules to disrupt pain signals before reaching the brain. Compared to other widely prescribed pain treatments, C2C is non-addictive and does not cause damage to surrounding cells. MezoMax is on the fast-track. Co-Founder Ilya Shmidt has 10 years of preclinical and clinical data documenting the safety and efficacy of calcium gluconate in treating fractures and osteoporosis in patients overseas. Onconetics is innovative. This start-up is part of a new era of cancer treatment. Co-Founder Luke Gruenert has developed a personalized gene therapy technique that selectively destroys cancer cells without harming normal cells. He’s confident that, “personalized therapy is the future of medicine.” They, along with 10 other startups, comprise IndieBio’s Class Six. Their Demo Day will be held on Tuesday, April 17, 2018 at Herbst Theater in San Francisco. Please register to get a seat, as we are told they fill up quickly!