Johnson & Johnson Innovation is expanding its innovation strategy with the opening of a new bioincubator in Europe, designed to identify and nurture early-stage companies.
The initiative called JLINX, will be based at the Janssen campus in Beerse, Belgium, and aims to catalyse innovation by offering start-ups flexible ways to grow and collaborate across the European life science ecosystem.
JLINX will be located in a dedicated facility and will be managed by a third party, Bioqube Ventures, which will provide independent oversight for venture funding and company selection.
Entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to share ideas and collaborate with each other while accessing a range of resources including funding, infrastructure, and internal and external scientific, technical and business expertise.
The new bioincubator is accepting applications immediately and will be fully operational by this summer.
“The mission of Johnson & Johnson Innovation is to identify and advance the best science – internal or external,” said Paul Stoffels, Chief Scientific Officer and Chairman, Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson. “We are confident that JLINX will create a vibrant ecosystem of start-ups and entrepreneurs with access to the world-class expertise and technology at the Janssen Campus in Belgium and within our global network.”
“This new initiative has been designed to foster the creative start-up culture in Europe that can accelerate breakthroughs,” Stoffels said.
External investors
Investment in promising transformative innovation through the JLINX initiative is venture-based and Johnson & Johnson companies will not hold any specific rights to commercialised products.
JLINX will launch with initial funding from Johnson & Johnson Innovation, with the aim of leveraging these funds to attract additional external investors.
Johnson & Johnson Innovation will work closely with Bioqube Ventures, which will provide an experienced management team to run the day-to-day operations of JLINX, including managing the investment portfolio and relationships with external venture investors, identifying and securing new companies and supporting the scale-up of the new initiative.
“We believe the benefits of this collaboration will go far beyond developing successful new businesses,” said William Hait, Global Head of Janssen Research & Development. “This new initiative will fuel the evolution of new models for scientific innovation across the healthcare industry.”
In alignment with the recently launched Janssen Human Microbiome Institute, JLINX will have a particular focus on human microbiome research, alongside other areas of innovation in pharmaceuticals and other aspects of healthcare.
JLINX will complement Johnson & Johnson’s network of Innovation centres in Boston, California, London and Shanghai, its venture investing arm JJDC, and its JLABS incubators in Boston, Houston, San Diego, San Francisco and opening this spring in Toronto, as well as Janssen Business Development, which handles later stage mergers and acquisitions.
The overall aim is to identify, access and accelerate the best science – internal or external – at all stages of development and rapidly advance it through clinical research, Johnson & Johnson said.
Start-ups and entrepreneurs interested in applying to join the JLINX community can find out more at: jlinx.jnjinnovation.com
Receive the Funding Newswire each Tuesday, our Policy Bulletin each Thursday, and news about bridging Europe’s east-west innovation gap twice a month in The Widening. 
A unique international forum for public research organisations and companies to connect their external engagement with strategic interests around their R&D system.
