Novadip gets financing for cell therapy
Novadip Biosciences SA, a spinout from the University of Louvain and the Saint-Luc University Hospital, has raised €28 million in a Series A financing round to develop a therapy for bone defects that is based on adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells.
Novadip Biosciences SA, a spinout from the University of Louvain and the Saint-Luc University Hospital, has raised €28 million in a Series A financing round to develop a therapy for bone defects that is based on adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells.
Called Creost, the product is a three-dimensional implant made from autologous cells which can be administered without a scaffold. It is intended to promote in vivo tissue regeneration with all of the patient’s native bone properties. According to the company, 15 patients with various but severe bone conditions have been treated with the product over the past five years. The studies have been conducted under the EU’s ‘hospital exemption’ rules which allow hospitals to manufacture cells for experimental use in patients, provided they obtain the approval of a national regulator.
Formal clinical trials will be required however to bring the product into industrial-scale development and registration. Funds from the Series A round are expected to enable the start of this industrialisation process.
The Series A funding has been provided by New Science Ventures LLC of New York City, and the Belgian investors Vives Louvain Technology Fund, Nivelinvest SA, Fund+, Integrale, Société Régionale d’Investissement de Wallonie, Société Fédérale de Participations et d’Investissement, Epimède SPRL and individual investors.
As a cellular therapy Creost falls under the regulatory rules for advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs). To date, only five ATMP products have been authorised for marketing, the first of which was a tissue-engineered product for the repair of defects in the cartilage of the knee. This is ChondroCelect, developed by TiGenix NV.
Gil Beyen, the former TiGenix chief executive, was appointed as a director of Novadip in December 2014. The Novadip CEO is Jean-François Pollet, a biopharmaceutical industry veteran.
Novadip announced the fundraising on 10 September 2015.
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