MilliporeSigma Awards Grants to Biotechs Tackling Cancer and Cardiovascular Disease

• Three European companies to use MilliporeSigma’s Advance Biotech Grant prizes to accelerate molecule-to-market efforts

Burlington, Massachusetts, February 4, 2019 — MilliporeSigma today announced the winners of its Advance Biotech Grant program in Europe. The grant is given to small- and mid-size biotechnology companies that need funding and expertise to get their therapies to market. Applicants from emerging biotech companies across Europe were asked to describe their projects, the medical needs they solve, and process development challenges they face to be considered for the grant. Each grant recipient will receive between €50,000 and €100,000 in MilliporeSigma products and services to help solve their challenges.

“For decades, MilliporeSigma’s process development and manufacturing experts have worked with drug manufacturers of all sizes to solve their challenges and bring life-enhancing drug therapies to market, faster,” said Udit Batra, CEO, MilliporeSigma. “Through our Advance Biotech Grant Program, we are helping entrepreneurs around the world accelerate the commercialization of their molecules.”

The three grant recipients are:

• GenoScience Pharma (France), to explore new agents such as GNS561 — a never-before-used mechanism-of-action in commercialized cancer treatments / anti-cancer drugs in the pipeline.
• GlioCure (France), for developing an anti-tumor and neuroprotective peptide, GC01, to treat the most frequent and aggressive type of brain tumor, glioblastoma.
• ResoTher Pharma (Denmark), to develop new medicines for cardiovascular and inflammatory disorders.

GlioCure’s first product, GC01, is in the final stage of non-regulatory preclinical development for the treatment of glioblastoma which represents about 15 percent of all primary brain tumors.

“We are currently working on two different formulations to address resectable and non-resectable patients,” said Louis-Marie Bachelot, CEO and founder, GlioCure. “Thanks to the Advance Biotech Grant Program and MilliporeSigma’s expertise and capacities, GC01’s path towards the clinic will, undoubtedly, be strongly accelerated.”

MilliporeSigma selected the winning submissions based on the scientific and societal merit of therapy in development and process challenges and expertise gaps. The program is part of the company’s global biotech commitment to help bring therapies to market, leveraging decades of process development expertise products, and support at any production scale.

MilliporeSigma began offering the grant program in 2014. The rotating program runs every six months, in either Europe, the U.S. or China. To date, MilliporeSigma has awarded nearly €1 million in products and services from MilliporeSigma to 17 biotech companies in these regions. Past European grant recipients include Germany-based GeneQuine Biotherapeutics, the UK’s ReNeuron and Magnus Life Science and TILT Biotherapeutics in Finland.

In addition to the Advance Biotech Grant, MilliporeSigma recently named Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Kytopen as the winner of its biotech start-up program in the U.S. Kytopen won a sponsored residency at LabCentral, a first-of-its-kind shared laboratory space. As a resident, the biotech works to further develop its proprietary Flowfect™ technology for non-viral delivery of molecules into hard-to-transfect cells. Kytopen’s automated cell engineering platform enables new discoveries in biology that lead to cost-effective cell and gene therapies.

Biotech companies in the U.S. with a molecule in development are encouraged to apply before March 31, 2019 for the next round of grant funding.

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About the Life Science Business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

The Life Science business of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, which operates as MilliporeSigma in the U.S. and Canada, has some 22,000 employees and 59 manufacturing sites worldwide, with a portfolio of more than 300,000 products focused on scientific discovery, biomanufacturing, and testing services.

Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, a leading science and technology company, operates across healthcare, life science, and electronics. Around 58,000 employees work to make a positive difference to millions of people’s lives every day by creating more joyful and sustainable ways to live. From advancing gene-editing technologies and discovering unique ways to treat the most challenging diseases to enabling the intelligence of devices – the company is everywhere. In 2020, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany generated sales of € 17.5 billion in 66 countries.

The company holds the global rights to the name and trademark “Merck” internationally. The only exceptions are the United States and Canada, where the business sectors of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany operate as EMD Serono in healthcare, MilliporeSigma in life science, and EMD Electronics. Since its founding in 1668, scientific exploration and responsible entrepreneurship have been key to the company’s technological and scientific advances. To this day, the founding family remains the majority owner of the publicly listed company. For more information about Merck, KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, visit  www.emdgroup.com.