Leiden, June 16, 2016 - Pluriomics, an emerging Dutch/Belgian biotechnology company whose mission is to deliver innovative human cardiomyocyte assays for use in drug discovery & development, today announced it was awarded a prestigious EU SME instrument grant. This grant gives Pluriomics the opportunity to advance cardiovascular drug discovery, in order to reduce the development length, costs and late stage attrition of novel drug candidates.
Over the years, Pluriomics has implemented its Pluricyte® Cardiomyocytes and innovative technologies to provide high quality services for efficient and reliable safety pharmacology testing. Supported by 3.2 million euro SME instrument grant funding, Pluriomics will have the opportunity to further develop and improve their safety pharmacology assays as well as developing novel cardiac disease models and high-throughput screening assays for cardiovascular drug discovery.
“We are honored that the European Commission recognized the tremendous potential of our cardiomyocyte platform and Pluriomics as a disruptive business to invest in. The investment will accelerate growth of the company and market presence of Pluriomics products”, said CEO, Stefan Braam. “It will allow us to continue moving towards the market whilst significantly investing in new product development, screening and disease modeling capabilities.”
About Pluriomics
Pluriomics, a leading expert in human cardiovascular stem cell technology, manufactures fully functional human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes (Pluricyte® Cardiomyocytes) using well-defined, serum-free medium that enhances the maturation and function of the cells. Pluriomics’ Pluricyte® Cardiomyocytes and innovative technologies are exceptionally well suited for implementation in various stages of drug discovery to improve decision-making, reduce attrition rates and provide an alternative for animal testing.
Pluriomics, with offices and research laboratories in Leiden, The Netherlands and production facilities in Gosselies, Belgium, was founded in 2010. For more information, please visit www.pluriomics.com.
About SME instrument grant
The SME instrument grant is part of Horizon 2020, which is the largest EU Research and Innovation programme ever with nearly €80 billion of funding available over 7 years (2014 to 2020).
Provided with about €3 billion in funding over the period 2014-2020, the SME Instrument helps high-potential SMEs to develop groundbreaking innovative ideas for products, services or processes that are ready to face global market competition. Available to SMEs only, which can organize a project in the way that best fits their business needs – meaning that subcontracting is not excluded – the new scheme has opened a new highway to innovation through phased, progressive and complimentary support.
For more information, please visit: https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/h2020-section/sme-instrument.