Cellzome awarded €3.85M grant in Germany’s High-Tech Initiative

Development grant

UK company Cellzome Ltd, a spin-out from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, has been awarded a grant of up to €3.85 million from the German government as part of an application from the Rhine-Neckar biotech cluster, BioRN.

The funds will be used to expand the Cambridge-based company’s technology platform for discovering and finding hits for epigenetics targets.

In addition, Cellzome will optimize its Kinobeads platform for diagnostic and translational medicine studies, making it possible to monitoring target-drug interactions directly in patient tissue. This will improve the predictability of the safety and efficacy of new drug candidates in the clinic.

The grant, which will run for five years, is part of the German government’s HighTech initiative. The BioRN cluster around Heidelberg, was the only region which won a grant for life sciences/healthcare. In total, companies in the region will receive €40 million in funding over the next five years for projects in cell-based and molecular medicine.

Tim Edwards, CEO of Cellzome, said the grant recognises the value of Cellzome’s technology platform. “[It] enables us to broaden its scope and its range of applications together with our partners in the BioRN.”