Ncardia Established Following Pluriomics Axiogenesis Merger
Joining forces
Ncardia has secured an additional €4.25M from existing investors, Vesalius Biocapital, SFPI-FPIM and Sambrinvest as a direct result of the merger. Both scientific specialists & business units based in Leiden, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and the US are focused on meeting the needs of customers in pharma and biotech sectors and have developed a pipeline of innovative products, services and solutions to position Ncardia as the trusted global leader in hiPSC based cardiac drug discovery & development. Dr. Stefan Braam, Pluriomics co-founder has been appointed CEO while Dr. Heribert Bohlen, Axiogenesis co-founder has been named CSO. Dr. Bernd Fronhoff will become COO.
The combined specialist units will allow our customers to accelerate and improve drug candidate selection, lower costs, and ultimately increase drug development efficiency.
“Establishing Ncardia was a strategic decision” said Stefan Braam CEO. “We are bringing the best of both organisations together – our people, products, services, industry knowledge and expertise to develop and generate more innovative stem cell based products and services to serve our customers at an even higher level than before. Our goal is to be the trusted global leader in the hiPSC drug discovery and development field so that Ncardia is the partner of choice for scientists operating in cardiovascular and neural safety and efficacy projects.”
By joining forces, Ncardia can provide assay solutions in a shorter time-frame which will help to accelerate and improve the discovery & development of efficient and safe drugs. The combined business allows Ncardia to build on over two decades of knowledge, stem cell product R&D and commercialization by Pluriomics and Axiogenesis respectively. It gives Ncardia further opportunities for growth in a rapidly developing marketplace.
Heribert Bohlen CSO added, “Combining the scientific excellence and expertise of Pluriomics and Axiogenesis boosts our R&D capabilities. It allows us to accelerate innovations within the cardiac drug discovery & development areas. He went on to say that “the combined specialist units will allow our customers to accelerate and improve drug candidate selection, lower costs, and ultimately increase drug development efficiency.“
Ncardia has more than 60 employees in Europe and the US. The combined teams will continue to engage with clients to develop and provide customers with a broad portfolio of cardiovascular cell models and services. These services range from disease modelling to cardiovascular drug efficacy screening to cardiac safety assessment and implementing Ncardia’s innovative and proprietary cell types in various screening platforms.
InnovationQuarter invested in Pluriomics, which is a spin-off from Leiden University in 2014
This article appeared first on Business Wire