Within this project ZeClinics developed ZeCardio®, a unique, fully automated, robotic and software-driven cardiovascular screening platform.
Start – End dates: 01/04/17 – 31/03/19
Project reference: SME Instrument, phase 2 (755988)
Total budget: 1,867,186.25€
Financed by: European Union (Horizon 2020)
¨This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement ID: 755988¨
Partners: ZeClinics
Summary:
Within this project ZeClinics developed ZeCardio®, a unique, fully automated, robotic and software-driven cardiovascular screening platform. It is introduced in the pharmaceutical and biomedical market as an ambitious technological and commercial novel solution, that aims at accelerating early drug discovery by providing in-vivo outputs from zebrafish while maintaining costs and velocity of an in-vitro technology and with a translational relevance to humans of more than 90%.
The obtained results during the project serve as a breakpoint to ZeClinics in the highly competitive market. Thanks to the project, ZeClinics has become a leading CRO zebrafish specialist in cardiovascular and genetics solutions in the drug discovery industry. This was achieved by scaling up and automatization of the ZeCardio® platform that provides High-Throughput Screening (HTS) possibility. The technology has also been protected by a proper IP protection strategy and ZeClinics is leading an implementation of a roadmap towards regulatory acceptance by EU Reference Laboratory for alternatives to animal testing (ECVAM). These achievements position ZeClinics as leader in the field and way ahead of the possible competitors. Moreover, due to the success of the project, a spin out company has been founded – ZeCardio Therapeutics (https://www.zecardiotherapeutics.com/) – a new biopharmaceutical company based on ZeCardio® technology and fully dedicated to the development of novel and disrupting therapies for cardiovascular diseases.
The main achievements during the project have been:
- Scale up and automation of ZeCardio® platform
- Publication ¨Comparison of zebrafish larvae and hiPSC cardiomyocytes for predicting drug induced cardiotoxicity in humans¨ published in Toxicological Sciences journal
- Definition of a roadmap towards the ZeCardio® regulatory acceptance; first milestones achieved
- New pharma spin out based on ZeCardio® technology – ZeCardio Therapeutics
- Global sales closed with large pharmaceutical companies and top-leading academic centres