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Irish biotech company powered by tech developed at DCU awarded €2.5million funding award

RemedyBio, an Irish biotechnology company whose flagship technology has been developed with Dublin City University has been awarded €2.5 million from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator pilot for its Covid-19 Response Technology.

Dr Paul Leonard, Assistant Professor in Biomedical Sciences at DCU is a co-founder of RemedyBio and Chief Scientific Officer and developed the company’s pioneering Nanoreactor technology, which improves the speed and scale of single cell analysis in partnership with DCU.

RemedyBio creates nanoscale biotechnology, pioneering ultra-high throughput therapeutic and diagnostic discovery.

It was selected from almost 4,000 companies and submitted proposals to the EIC Accelerator Pilot in March, from which 72 secured funding across Europe.

Eight Irish companies have secured over 10% of the funding, ranking second in the countries awarded funding.

The company’s technology is designed to rapidly and simultaneously analyse millions of single immune cells from an individual sample.

In the context of Covid-19, this presents an opportunity to rapidly identify the best antibodies from the immune systems of Covid-19 infected patients for which to create a rapid passive therapeutic vaccine for those that are critically ill from the virus.

This significant accolade provides RemedyBio with a springboard from which to develop a highly effective, novel therapeutic approach for Covid-19 and diseases.

In addition to the EIC grant, RemedyBio was also awarded significant additional equity financing from the EIC Accelerator, which targets radically new, breakthrough products, services, processes or business models that open up new markets.

Dr Paul Leonard, Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder RemedyBio, said,

“This award builds on previous support from both Science Foundation Ireland and Enterprise Ireland at DCU, and clearly demonstrates how national funding to build game-changing ideas can have a significant impact on the international stage.

"EIC's support will allow RemedyBio to industrialise our technology to help in the fight against Covid-19 and future pandemics, getting better medicines to patients, faster.

This award also recognises the support RemedyBio have received from Enterprise Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland and DCU who has been a key partner to us in helping Remedy create one of the world's most advanced discovery engines to fight Covid-19". Speaking today, the

The President of DCU, Professor Brian MacCraith said,

"This EIC investment is a major endorsement of RemedyBio's groundbreaking innovation that will enable high-throughput identification of the optimal antibodies of Covid-19-infected patients for which to create therapeutic vaccines.

DCU is delighted to have been part of this success and will continue to support Paul and his team in their work, as they make key advances in addressing this unprecedented public health crisis."

RemedyBio CEO and Co-Founder Dan Crowley added, "Remedy’s unique advantage is in the discovery of immune biology to fight disease with unmatched precision in areas such as cancer, immune disorders, and infectious disease.

"We greatly welcome EIC's support for our technology to develop a long term pandemic response platform to protect Europe from future pandemics, as well as enabling development of our advanced passive therapy for Covid-19".

The recent award of RemedyBio is very well aligned with the growing research activity that DCU has developed in addressing the challenge of Covid-19.

Dr Leonard is currently a part of the DCU Covid-19 Research & Innovation Hub which was recently established and brings together DCU's research strengths in a coordinated manner to tackle a number of key challenges associated with the Covid-19 crisis.

Dr Leonard is working with the HSE Covid-19 Laboratory R&D Production solutions Group in order to determine the best antibody test solution and one that could form part of a national testing strategy.

This is one of sixteen projects currently underway at the DCU Covid-19 R&I Hub. RemedyBio is also supported by the Irish Research Council and Enterprise Ireland

To read about RemedyBio go to remedybiologics.com