Toxys raises € 2 million financing for global expansion of its unique animal-free chemical safety tests
Toxys is an innovative Dutch biotech company that develops unique animal-free laboratory tests for the safety assessment of novel medicines, chemicals, cosmetics and food. Today, Toxys announces a €2 million funding round from KIKK Capital, InnovationQuarter, Zeeland Investment fund, Toxys management and Rabobank. InnovationQuarter invested in 2016 in Toxys, when it started as a spin-off of the LUMC.
This investment is being made to advance Toxys’ ambition to become the global leading supplier of expert mechanistic in vitro chemical safety testing services. These services provide animal-free safety testing of novel medicines, chemicals and consumer products. The patented ToxTracker® assay can identify toxic and carcinogenic properties of novel pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals and fine chemicals already at an early stage of drug/product development. ToxTracker can prevent the unnecessary rejections of highly valuable drug candidates and products, reduce drug/product development time lines and can prevent unnecessary animal testing. ToxTracker has the unique ability to identify the mode-of-action of toxic compounds which significantly improves the ability to predict and reduce risks for human health. ToxTracker is currently under review by the international authorities for official acceptance and inclusion of the test systems within the standard regulatory safety test strategy. Furthermore, with its soon-to-be launched novel ReproTracker® test, Toxys aims to fill a large unmet meet for an in vitro embryo toxicity test.
With this new financial investment, Toxys is enabled to accelerate the growth of the company by expanding its operations in Europe and the United States. Toxys will also further broaden its portfolio of unique in vitro toxicology assays, speed-up international growth and work in acceptance and implementation of its toxicology assays for regulatory applications.
Giel Hendriks, CEO of Toxys, commented:
“We have made important progress on development of innovative animal-free tests for drug and chemical safety testing. I am very proud of the strong and dedicated Toxys team to execute our plans to become a trusted expert in toxicological research. With this new investment, we are ready to further expand our business globally and continue to work on the development of novel solutions for toxicological research”.
Johan Sebregts, Investment manager KIKK Capital: “As a board member I have seen Toxys grow to a successful and profitable biotech company with a growing global client base. Now the first product of Toxys, ToxTracker, has proven itself in the pharmaceutical and chemical industry it’s time for further international expansion and the market introduction of some exiting new products. KIKK Capital is looking forward to support the developments of Toxys and is convinced that with the investment Toxys will be able to realize its full international potential”.
Gerty Holla, Investment Manager InnovationQuarter: “Toxys was one of the first investments of InnovationQuarter. We are impressed with its steady growth during these years. This follow up investment round supports Toxys in taking the next step from start up to scale up. It is unique company, making impact by assuring safety of compounds for human health, and contributing to the transition towards animal-free testing.”
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