TreeFrog Therapeutics receives additional €3M non-dilutive funding to mass-produce clinical-grade cell therapies by 2021
Company awarded close to €3M ($3.3M) in public grants only five months after Series A round of €7M ($7.8M)
Bordeaux, France, September 5, 2019 – TreeFrog Therapeutics, an expert stem cell company, today announces that it has received close to €3M ($3.3M) in non-dilutive funding from French and European programs. The company received €450k ($478.8k) from the French government as part of Phase 2 of the i-Nov Innovation Challenge, as well as €2.4M ($2.6M) from the European Commission as part of Phase 2 of the SME Instrument (now EIC Accelerator, part of the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme).
This funding will be used to accelerate the cGMP certification and scale-up of C-Stem™, TreeFrog Therapeutics’ technology for the mass-production of cell therapies. Compatible with conventional bioreactors, C-Stem™ will turn into a regulatory body compliant bioproduction platform to service the cell therapy industry with stem cells and differentiated therapeutic cells. The company aims to deliver its first clinical-grade batches by 2021, introducing a new quality standard for cellular products and reducing production costs by at least 10-fold.
“Being supported and recognized as a strategic asset by the European Commission and by the French government marks the beginning of a new chapter in TreeFrog’s history. Over the past year, we have secured intellectual property, successfully closed a Series A round, set up the operations team and established the company’s governance. We now have two years to complete the next chapter, which is all about entering the market to provide patients with access to safe and affordable cell therapies,” said Maxime Feyeux, president, CSO, Treefrog Therapeutics.
“Our focus is now on accelerating our programs. To do so, we are working on the recruitment of seasoned executives to be in charge of the cGMP certification, as well as on extending our production capacity, with a view to delivering clinical-grade batches to our partners by Q1 2021,” said Kevin Alessandri, CEO & CTO, TreeFrog Therapeutics.
As an i-Nov winner, between now and 2020 TreeFrog Therapeutics will receive €450k from Bpifrance. Launched by the French Government in 2018, the ‘i-Nov Innovation Challenge Phase 2’ aims to support innovative projects led by start-ups and SMEs and accelerate the emergence of leading companies in their field, capable of global reach.
The project will also receive funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program through the SME Instrument Phase 2 under grant agreement n° SME 881113. TreeFrog Therapeutics will receive €2.4M over the 2019-2022 period. The SME Instrument is a business innovation support scheme that targets SMEs in the EU member states and the H2020 associated countries. It aims to support those companies with the most innovative ideas and biggest growth potential. In 2019, the European Commission received 5,638 SME Instrument applications from 40 countries and selected 232 laureates. TreeFrog Therapeutics became a laureate at the first submission; most laureates submit at least three times.
The key bottleneck of the cell therapy industry today is the culture of pluripotent stem cells, which are fragile and difficult to grow. Therefore, current cell therapy programs are limited by manufacturing capacity, cell processing costs and cell quality. To address this challenge, TreeFrog Therapeutics developed C-Stem™, its proprietary technology for stem cell culture; a 3D cell culture system enabling the mass production of stem cells in bioreactors with short lead times, while preserving genomic integrity. C-Stem™ aims to significantly lower costs and accelerate bioproduction to treat millions of patients living with currently incurable chronic and degenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease, type 1 diabetes and heart failure.
About TreeFrog Therapeutics
TreeFrog Therapeutics is a stem cell company that, by overcoming current critical manufacturing issues, will enable millions of patients to access the medical revolution in cell therapies.
TreeFrog Therapeutics has developed C-Stem™, a proprietary technology platform based on 3D stem cell culture. It provides an end-to-end and scalable solution that will dramatically improve the quality of therapeutic cells and reduce treatment costs.
Through strategic partnerships and co-developments with pharma companies and cell therapy initiatives, TreeFrog Therapeutics aims to hasten the clinical development of cell therapies and facilitate market access.
Following a one-year maturation period funded by tech transfer office AST Innovations, TreeFrog was founded in November 2018 in Bordeaux, France. The company, which was awarded the ‘Grand Prix’ at the French i-Lab contest for deep tech innovation in 2018, now employs 10 staff at a dedicated bioproduction site.
TreeFrog Therapeutics raised €7.1M ($7.8M) in 2019 with XAnge (Siparex Group), Galia Gestion and historical investors Irdi Soridec, Aquiti Gestion and SATT Aquitaine.
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