Winners of Merck’s Advance Biotech Grant, from left to right: Lone Veng (CEO, ResoTher Pharma), Cyrille Drouot (CMC and Quality Director, GenoScience Pharma), Louis-Marie Bachelot (CEO, GlioCure) and GlioCure team members Dr. Claire Lépinoux-Chambaud and Dr. Paul Baldwin.

Biotech Grants Support Molecule to Market Efforts

Feb 21 2019

Science and technology company Merck has announced the winners of its Advance Biotech Grant program in Europe, which supports SME’s in need of funding and expertise to get their therapies to market. Applicants from emerging biotech companies were asked to describe their projects, the medical needs they solve along with the process development challenges they face to be considered for the grant. The three grant recipients to receive between €50,000 and €100,000 in Merck products and services were:

GenoScience Pharma (France), to explore new agents such as GNS561 — a never-before-used mechanism-of-action in commercialised cancer treatments / anti-cancer drugs in the pipeline.

GlioCure (France) ), for developing an anti-tumour and neuroprotective peptide, GC01, to treat the most frequent and aggressive type of brain tumour, glioblastoma

ResoTher Pharma (Denmark), to develop new medicines for cardiovascular and inflammatory disorders.

“For decades, Merck’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, member of the Merck Executive Board and CEO, Life Science. “Through our Advance Biotech Grant Program, we are helping entrepreneurs around the world accelerate the commercialisation of their molecules.”

Initiated in 2014, the rotating grant program runs every six months, in either Europe, the U.S. or China. To date, Merck has awarded nearly €1 million in products and services from Merck 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, Merck recently named Kytopen as the winner of its biotech start-up program in the U.S. Massachusetts-based Kytopen won a sponsored residency at LabCentral, a first-of-its-kind shared laboratory space.