QIAGEN supports young biotechnology and pharma companies by announcing winners of first-ever annual Biotech Grants
Germantown, Maryland, and Hilden, Germany, January 19, 2022 – QIAGEN today announced the winners of its new Biotech Grants program, an initiative driven by the company’s commitment to building strong partnerships with biotechnology and pharma businesses and helping them succeed in the market.
With the new grant program, QIAGEN wants to specifically support small companies and start-ups to grow their business. All with the aim to turn promising scientific visions into commercially viable and socially relevant missions. The program is open to all companies founded within the last two years in North America and Europe. This time, QIAGEN products and instruments worth up to $200,000 went to three main winners in the US - BrickBuilt Therapeutics, Glyphic Biotechnologies and RheumaGen – as well as one winner in Europe – OncoBone Therapeutics. All runners-up also got the opportunity to join QIAGEN’s Biotech Accelerator Program and benefit from comprehensive research and business support.
“All winning companies are extremely worthy winners of a very competitive race for QIAGEN’s first Biotech Grants,” said Thomas Schweins, Senior Vice President, Life Science Business Area. “We had so many great projects to choose from that we had to name more winners than one. It is amazing to see so many companies driving inventions and innovations to become products that can benefit society."
Massachusetts-based grant winner BrickBuilt Therapeutics develops novel microbiome-focused treatments to transform oral health. “QIAGEN is making a real contribution to the biotechnology ecosystem,” said Brian Klein, co-founder and CEO of BrickBuilt Therapeutics. “QIAGEN’s automation of nucleic acid purification, reagent setup as well as target identification and quantitation provide an end-to-end capability for molecular teams. And if we get our research and development execution right with QIAGEN’s help, we will gain insights about microbiomes for oral health and across many systematic disease indications.”
Another main winner of QIAGEN’s grant program is Glyphic Biotechnologies - a company that is developing a first-of-its-kind, next-generation sequencing platform for proteins. “Understanding fundamental cell function and dysfunction by sequencing proteins from samples such as single cells is key to understanding human disease,” explained Joshua Yang, co-founder and CEO of the Californian biotech start-up. “QIAGEN’s support could help revolutionize our understanding of biology and accelerate discovery of targeted therapeutics.”
The third main US-winner RheumaGen comes from Colorado and is developing a cure for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) based on a breakthrough gene therapy discovered at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. “QIAGEN stands for decades of scientific and entrepreneurial excellence,” said Dr. Brian M. Freed, lead inventor, co-founder and Chief Science Officer of RheumaGen. “As we prepare for an Investigational New Drug (IND) submission to the FDA, QIAGEN’s timely support and grant as a commercial partner is greatly appreciated.” Heather Callahan, Director of Licensing at the University of Colorado, added, “The QIAGEN sponsorship will greatly assist in further advancing RheumaGen technologies, bringing life-changing solutions to rheumatoid arthritis patients.”
Read full article: Qiagen.com