Lascco SA, a preclinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing highly selective nanomedicines for neurodegenerative diseases, today announced that it has received funding from the Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation (CTI/KTI) for a collaboration with the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). The one and a half-year research project will have a total budget of CHF 240000.
The research collaboration between Lascco and EPFL will involve two EPFL labs: the Polymers Laboratory (LP), at the Institute of Materials, directed by Professor Harm-Anton Klok, and the Neurodegenerative Studies Laboratory (LEN) at the Brain Mind Institute, directed by Professor Patrick Aebischer. The one and a half-year research project will have a total budget of CHF 240’000. The objective of the CTI supported project is the development and optimization of high-affinity nanoparticles targeting newly-discovered neuroinflammatory pathways involved in neural degeneration. The company will then conduct preclinical studies on selected drug candidates.
Lascco’s contribution will be coordinated by Samareh Azeredo da Silveira Lajaunias, co-founder and Managing Director. “We are very pleased,” she said, “that CTI has recognized the potential of Lascco’s new therapeutic target for neurodegenerative diseases and look forward to working in collaboration with EPFL. The knowledge acquired during this research collaboration will accelerate development up to IND-enabling studies, and pave the way for clinical studies.”
Lascco, a young company based in Geneva, aims at filling the gap between academic research and the pharmaceutical industry, by structuring and managing the progression of selected discovery-stage biomedical technologies from the academic lab all the way to the proof of concept in humans.
Recent years have witnessed the emergence of a number of public and private organizations providing seed capital, management support, and sometimes infrastructure, for the launching of start-up biotech companies. These financial and business supports are primarily directed at scientists willing or ready to embark on an entrepreneurial venture. Innovative technologies developed by scientists devoted to their academic activities and uninterested in an entrepreneurial venture remain unexploited and their value is kept buried. Lascco was founded on the recognition of a need for an active support at an early stage, to bring such innovative technologies developed in academia to the market.
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