AvantiCell secures European funding to progress
Life science firm is ‘privileged’
A SCOTTISH life sciences company has secured European funding to support its continuing work in cell-based analysis.
AvantiCell Science was one of only four UK companies from 310 applicants across the UK to be chosen for phase one of the Horizon 2020 SME instrument project.
The Ayrshire company said the €50,000 grant was not a “startling amount” but signalled its satisfaction in negotiating a rigorous application and evaluation process to achieve the funding.
Jo Oliver, who co-founded AvantiCell nine years ago with cell biologist Colin Wilde, said the success had put the company in a “privileged position” for the next phase of its development.
The company uses ethically-sourced human cells, typically “surgical excess” given with patients’ consent, to test how they respond to different materials.
This gives insight into how cells in the human body react when such materials are ingested or injected, or taken as medicines.
“It can virtually be any material where you are trying to understand the impact on the human body – good or bad,” said Ms Oliver. “We are basically using the building block of the body – the cell – to build systems that really try to replicate what will happen inside the body.”
The technology being developed by AvantiCell was created by Mr Wilde. Its platform is used to help evaluate “drug candidates for a range of conditions, including diabetes types one and two, cancers and gut and lung disease, and osteoporosis”. The European grant will focus on a project involving 3D or additive printing to assemble cell models.
Ms Oliver said: “The next big push we hope will be in the area of neuronal disease – things like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s – developing systems that will help evaluate potential drugs.
“Our business in the development of drugs themselves is helping others to do that in a way that is informed so you get as much information as you can before a drug goes to clinical trials.”
She added: “It’s as much about identifying what isn’t going to work as what is going to work.”
The company has an operation in Malaysia, focused on materials sourced from the natural environment that potentially have ‘therapeutic potential’.
“Nature has some remarkable ways to survive in the natural environment and often we are trying to tap into those survival mechanisms, and potentially turn them into the next generation of therapeutics,” Ms Oliver said.
AvantiCell has 20 staff, with ambitions to grow. It turns over £1 million and has made profits in the last three years. THE opportunity to be recognised as one of the best digital companies in the country is still available but the entry deadline for The Herald’s Scottish Digital Business Awards is looming.
There are just a few weeks left to enter to make an entry, via http://herald-events.com/digitalawards, and they must be in by September 3.
Screenmedia was named best digital agency at the 2014 ceremony and director Kenny Shaw said it had provided a boost to the Glasgow company.
He said: “The atmosphere in the studio following the awards night was that of shock and pure elation. It means so much to us that the efforts we put into our solutions, client service and innovation is not only recognised but commended within the industry.”