(Stuttgart) – BioRegio STERN Management GmbH is the German lead partner for the Interreg project Codex4SMEs. The aim of this project is to build a transnational network to accelerate the development of companion diagnostics throughout the whole value chain for small and medium-sized businesses. The project has been endowed with a total budget of 3.13 million euros as part of the Interreg North-West Europe (INTERREG NWE) programme. "Interreg" forms part of the structural and investment policy of the European Union, supporting cross-border cooperation between regions and cities.
Companion diagnostics are essential to the field of "personalised medicine". They allow tests to determine the molecular causes of a disease before treatment is started. This allows every patient to receive personalised medication in the correct dosage and at the right time. However, thus far the development of companion diagnostics has been highly time-consuming and costly, so at present it is only used in the context of very few treatments. The Codex4SMEs project (Companion Diagnostics expedited for small and medium-sized enterprises) will involve the establishment of a network of nine partners and two sub-partners from seven countries, to assist companies with the development of such services:
- from Ireland, the bodies involved are WestBIC (EU Business and Innovation Centre for Irelands Border, Midlands and Western Region) and CÚRAM (the Science Foundation Ireland Centre for Research in Medical Devices at NUI Galway),
- from England, the University of Leicester, with Medilink Midlands as a regional sub-partner,
- from France, the Medicen Paris Region cluster,
- from the Netherlands, BOM Holding BV (technology funding body Brabantse Ontwik-kelings Maatschappij) and the Innovation Quarter, with a regional sub-partner,
- from Luxembourg, the Integrated BioBank of Luxembourg – IBBL, and
- from Austria, the Biobank Graz at the Medical University of Graz.
"The combination of regional economic development organisations and biobanks creates the ideal conditions to provide companies with direct access to specific expertise such as the verification of biomarkers, in other words parameters of biological processes as indicators of diseases", says project leader Dr Margot Jehle of BioRegio STERN Management GmbH.
The project has a total budget of 3.13 million euros as part of the Interreg North-West Europe (INTERREG NWE) programme. BioRegio STERN Management GmbH is the lead partner; for the project term of three years it will receive close to 640,000 euros, of which 60 per cent will come from subsidies. The kick-off meeting with all of the partners will take place on 29 and 30 January 2018 in Stuttgart.