Lille, France, and Cambridge, Mass., Jan. 20, 2011 – GENFIT (Alternext: ALGFT; ISIN: FR0004163111), a biopharmaceutical company at the forefront of drug discovery and development, focused on the early diagnosis and preventive treatment of cardiometabolic and associated disorders, today announced that it will lead the micro-Path program within a new biomarker research consortium. Therefore, the Company is supported by 4.9 million Euros from the Strategic Industrial Innovation program of the French public organization OSEO.
The global budget of the micro-Path program is 13.5 million Euros over 4 years, of which 10.3 million Euros will be invested by GENFIT as the leader of the research consortium. The consortium also includes other industrial partners (genOway, Indicia Biotechnology), the research unit Inserm 1011 (Lille University 2/Lille Pasteur Institute), and three clinical research groups in cardiology located in Lille (Lille University Hospital/Lille University 2, Lyon (Lyon University Hospital/Claude Bernard University), and Paris (Assistance Publique- Hôpitaux de Paris/University of Paris 13).
Micro-Path is a translational research program based on the use of GENFIT’s Mprint TM technology. Mprint represents a set of tools and know-how for the capture, measurement, and characterization of macromolecular substances in different human body fluids, such as blood and cerebrospinal fluid, as early markers of a pathological state and the evolution of disease. The micro-Path program will notably accelerate the development of this technology for the discovery of novel biomarkers of atherosclerosis and of vulnerable plaques.
GENFIT has two major objectives in the micro-Path program:
- To propose a decision-making tool for the selection and follow-up of patients for clinical trials of drug candidates in the cardiometabolic arena. Such a tool will enable the optimization of clinical development plans, thus reducing costs and the time to market the new cardiometabolic drugs.
- To propose a tool for the development of a new diagnostic test that enables the simple, rapid, and reliable identification and thus the early treatment of patients at high cardiovascular risk.
About OSEO’s Strategic Industrial Innovation program:
The Strategic Industrial Innovation program (ISI) contributes to the generation of European industrial leaders. It funds ambitious projects of collaborative industrial innovation, led by small (< 250 employees) and medium- sized (< 5000 employees) enterprises. When successful, such projects are very promising: they target the commercialization of breakthrough technologies, and could not be carried out without public assistance. The funding of such projects ranges from 3 to 10 million Euros in the form of grants and loans, and is accorded depending on the progress of the funded project and the development program of the enterprise. www.oseo.fr
About GENFIT:
GENFIT is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the Discovery and Development of drug candidates in therapeutic fields linked to cardiometabolic disorders (prediabetes/diabetes, atherosclerosis, dyslipidemia, inflammatory diseases…). GENFIT uses a multi-pronged approach based on early diagnosis, preventive solutions, and therapeutic treatments and advances therapeutic research programs, either independently or in partnership with leading pharmaceutical companies (SANOFI-AVENTIS, SERVIER, …), to address these major public health concerns and their unmet medical needs.
GENFIT’s research programs have resulted in the creation of a rich and diversified pipeline of drug candidates at different stages of development, including GENFIT’s lead proprietary compound, GFT505, that is currently in Phase II.
With facilities in Lille, France, and Cambridge, MA (USA), the Company has approximately 100 employees. GENFIT is a public company listed on the Alternext trading market by Euronext™ Paris (Alternext: ALGFT; ISIN: FR0004163111). www.genfit.com
Contacts:
GENFIT
Jean-François Mouney – CEO & Chairman of the Management Board +33 (0)3 2016 4000
MILESTONES – Press Relations Bruno Arabian +33 (0)1 75 44 87 40 / +33 (0)6 87 88 47 26 – barabian@milestones.fr
Russo Partners Martina Schwarzkopf, Ph.D. +1 212 845-4292 / +1 347 591 8785 - martina.schwarzkopf@russopartnersllc.com
