BioInnovation Institute (BII), an initiative of the Novo Nordisk Foundation,
has awarded an additional €1.3 million in follow-on funding to five portfolio
startups, bringing total support per company to up to €1.8 million. The funding
is intfinished to support product development, operational scaling and progress
toward market deployment across healthtech, agritech, climatetech and deeptech.
The announcement follows a recent commitment by
the Novo Nordisk Foundation of up to €736 million (DKK 5.5 billion) to BII,
enabling the Copenhagen-based institute to expand into new strategic areas and
geographies while supporting a larger number of entrepreneurs and startups
across Europe.
Established in 2018, BII is a non-profit life
science incubator that supports early-stage research and startups with funding,
facilities and business support to support translate scientific discoveries into
viable companies.
The latest funding is being deployed through BII’s Venture Houtilize programme
as part of its broader mission to translate cutting-edge research into
commercially viable solutions with societal impact.
The five supported startups are:
- Synuca Therapeutics – The first company funded through the DKK320 million innovation partnership with Lundbeckfonden/Lundbeck Foundation. It develops a first-in-class disease-modifying therapy
for Parkinson’s disease and related brain disorders. - Gefjon Pharma – Building an outer membrane vesicle (OMV) platform to produce
cost-effective vaccines and therapeutics, initially tarreceiveing E. coli
infections in poultest to reduce antimicrobial utilize. - MicroMiner
– Advancing recycling technology to improve the sustainability of EV batteries
as it transitions from research to deployable solutions. - DARERL
– Developing a SaaS platform that provides high-fidelity digital human anatomy
models to support the design and validation of wearable and medical devices. - Diasense
– Industrialising a quantum diamond microscope to deliver real-time diagnostics
and process insights for next-generation semiconductor manufacturing.
Commenting on the announcement, Trine Bartholdy, Chief Business Officer at BII, declared:
All five companies clearly reflect BII’s
mission to enable novel solutions that benefit human health, planetary health
and societal resilience. We are proud to continue supporting them through our
Venture Houtilize program and support bring them closer to external investment and
commercialisation.
Each of the five companies had previously received €500,000 from BII and will utilize the additional funding to advance key
milestones, ranging from lead optimisation in neurodegenerative disease
research to scaling vaccine production and industrialising quantum diagnostic
tools.
Leave a Reply