To facilitate the transition from research to practice, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) is supporting start-ups in the life sciences sector with its Biotechnology Start-up Initiative (GO-Bio). Two Munich-based teams are participating this time: Deoxy Technologies and NanoCapture, both from LMU Munich.
The "GO-Bio" program supports researchers for up to seven years—up to four years before the company's founding and up to three years after its founding. The founding teams receive an average of approximately one million euros per year for their research. Particularly in the life sciences, long development times and approval processes require significant financial resources.
Deoxy Technologies: Detecting the most aggressive cells
Deoxy Technologies, for example, can prepare its path from the laboratory to the economy with three million euros in funding. The researchers were already on the winners' podium in the Munich business plan competition in 2016. BayStartUP. Johannes Woehrstein and his colleagues are developing a method to detect active genes in individual cells. In particular, the most aggressive tumor cells should be identified at this cell-level resolution, thus increasing the chances of recovery.
NanoCapture: Making chemotherapy more efficient
Petar Marinković, also a researcher at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, is developing NanoCapture, a transport system for delivering cancer therapeutics directly to tumors. He uses substances that punch holes in tumor blood vessels. This allows nanoparticles to deliver chemotherapeutic drugs into the tissue. This should result in fewer side effects and greater efficacy compared to current chemotherapy.
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