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NorthMiRs Inc., an innovative cardiovascular biotech start-up, has won $250,000 in funding from the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research’s Entrepreneurship for Cardiovascular Health Opportunities (ECHO) PITCH 2024 competition.
Since its launch in 2018, the ECHO program has offered start-ups focused on cardiovascular inventions and technology with 12 months of entrepreneurship training, mentorship, and networking to help launch and grow their ventures. The program is run through the Translational Biology and Engineering Program at the Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research (TRCHR) and the University of Toronto in partnership with the Health Innovation Hub (H2i).
After completing the 12-month program, four of the top ventures were selected to compete for a prize of $250,000 that can be used to fund the growth of their company. This year’s event took place on October 17, 2024 at the MaRS Discovery District in front of a panel of five judges and a live audience of over 200 people.
After an intense pitching competition with a rigorous Q&A session, the judges announced NorthMiRs Inc. as the winner, an early-stage biotech company that aims to address the underlying immune dysregulation of sepsis using nanotechnology-enabled gene therapies. The company began in 2022, and was co-founded by Samantha McWhirter, Gilbert Walker, Logan Zettie, Claudia do Santos, Amin Ektesabi, and Chirag Vaswani.
NorthMiRs is developing RNA-based therapeutics that can change the way that physicians, nurses, and medical institutions treat patients suffering from sepsis and related conditions. NorthMiR’s leading product, NM-001, treats sepsis-induced cardiac dysfunction. Sepsis-induced cardiac dysfunction is a condition where the heart’s function is impaired due to a severe and widespread infection in the body. When a patient has sepsis, their immune system reacts strongly, releasing signaling chemicals into the blood to combat the infection. These chemicals are intended to treat the infection, but when produced in excess they can cause damage. NorthMiRs’ therapeutics help improve patient outcomes, free up space in the ICU, and reduce the financial burden on the health system.
NorthMiRs CEO, Samantha McWhirter, presented the team’s vision and outlined plans for NM-001 to enter clinical trials by 2027. “If all goes well, we are hoping to mark 5-years post-ECHO by starting our Phase II trial for NM-001 in 2029, hopefully extending into U.S. hospitals as well.” With the sepsis being the most common cause of death among critically ill patients in the hospital, this therapeutic could make a meaningful difference in treatment.
Reflecting on the ECHO program’s impact, McWhirter shared, “We [were] able to draw on the knowledge of [the] mentors, and learn from their experience in the therapeutics fields, specifically focused on cardiovascular therapeutics. This has allowed us to hone our regulatory pathway, and incorporate strategies to minimize risks that we otherwise wouldn’t have envisioned.” The NorthMiRs team had more to say in an interview earlier this year.
All four competing start-ups were given 10 minutes to pitch their ideas followed by 10 min of Q&A with a diverse judging panel that spanned cardiovascular researchers, clinicians, investors, entrepreneurs, and patient partners consisting of:
Heather Cartwright
President, Power Ten Investments Ltd.
Jacki Jenuth, PhD
Partner, Lumira Ventures
Evelyn Pau, PhD
Operating Principal, Amplitude Ventures
Heather Ross, CM, MD, MHSc, FRCP (C), FACC, FCCS
Site Lead, Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research
Division of Cardiology Head, Peter Munk Cardiac Centre
Professor of Medicine, Divisions of Cardiology and Transplant Medicine, U of T
Jennifer Silva, MD, FHRS
Co-Founder and CMO, SentiAR
Director of Pediatric Electrophysiology at St. Louis Children’s Hospital
Faculty Fellow in Entrepreneurship & Professor of Pediatrics & Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis
All event photography by Neil Ta.
