HZI and Ascenion Help Launch New Spin-off InSCREENex GmbH
With InSCREENex GmbH, a new spin-off from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) enters the market. As a service partner, the company develops customized cells for the biopharmaceutical industry with wide-ranging applications in drug discovery and development.
InSCREENex’s core technologies, SCREENflex and CI-SCREEN, have originally been developed by the company founder and his team at the HZI. The first allows the production of cells for primary screening in half the time that is usually required. The second enables the design of cells with tissue-like characteristics suited for secondary screening and initial ADME/TOX evaluation. Taken together, these technologies can significantly speed up the time- and cost-intensive process of biopharmaceutical drug discovery and validation.
‘InSCREENex has hit the nail on the head as the biopharmaceutical industry struggles to improve the productivity of its research and drug discovery efforts,’ says Christian Stein, CEO of Ascenion. ‘We have very much enjoyed the effective cooperation with the founding team and hope that the successful launch of InSCREENex will inspire further scientists at the HZI. We still see a lot of potential, here.’
Ascenion, the HZI’s technology transfer partner, has coached the founder and mediated a licence agreement that provides InSCREENex with exclusive rights to SCREENflex and CI-SCREEN. In return, Ascenion has acquired equity in InSCREENex and will continue to support the company.
Helmholtz Association and the HZI have contributed seed funding from the Helmholtz Enterprise Fund, together with a grant under the HEFplus programme. Moreover, they provide the entrepreneurs with continued access to the institute’s infrastructure and know-how.
‘We are very proud to see a further innovative and commercially promising spin-off from the HZI entering the market’, comments Prof. Jürgen Wehland, Scientific Director of the HZI. ‘The technologies SCREENflex and CI-SCREEN hold tremendous potential for various research fields at the HZI by accelerating the discovery and validation of novel therapeutic compounds.’
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