The Italian biotech company Cellex has received investments of over €830,000 from INNOVA Venture and the business angels “InAzione” for the production of innovative cellular bioreactors.
A class of devices that cultivate cells through patented cell culture technology, fluid dynamics, more effective, efficient, and less aggressive compared to devices already on the market. We’re talking about Cellex’s bioreactors, a small to medium-sized biotech company based in Rome operating in the field of engineering applied to biotechnologies. In 2023, the company received investments of over €830,000 with INNOVA Venture, the Venture Capital fund of the Lazio Region, as the lead investor along with the consortium of business angels “InAzione” from Reggio Emilia.
Investments for cellular bioreactors: two models created
Throughout 2023, the company received investments totaling over €830,000, with INNOVA Venture as the lead investor, the Venture Capital fund of the Lazio Region managed by Lazio Innova, along with the consortium of business angels “InAzione” from Reggio Emilia. Thanks to this investment, Cellex managed to produce a pre-series of two models of cellular bioreactors. The first is SUSPENCE®, for the culture of suspended cells useful for the production of biomolecules for medical use; and BioAxFlowTM, for the culture of adherent cells with multipurpose applications, from drug production to the generation of tumor models for chemotherapy screening, to the production of engineered living tissues. Both product lines are certifiable and ready for sale.
Cellex’s innovative bioreactors are a class of devices that cultivate cells through patented cell culture technology, purely fluid dynamic, more effective, efficient, and less aggressive compared to devices already on the market. They are also characterized by greater automation, reducing the need for human intervention in the delicate phases of cell seeding and harvesting, favoring the standardization of processes.
Medium-scale production of bioreactors thanks to the investment
“Thanks to the investment from Lazio Innova,” says Giuseppe Falvo D’Urso Labate, CEO of Cellex srl, “we will be able to undertake medium-scale production of the devices we have designed and created, quickly penetrating the European market for cell cultures, a fundamental sector for public health. Cellex’s bioreactors are products of the highest technology, unique in the Italian entrepreneurial landscape and on par with the best European competitors. Cellex’s growth from 2018 to date has been driven by the ecosystem present in the Lazio Region, which promotes entrepreneurship, particularly in the biotechnology sector. The investment we received will allow us to generate development and employment in the region.”
“The Lazio Region,” commented Roberta Angelilli, Vice President and Councillor for Economic Development, Commerce, Crafts, Industry, and Internationalization of the Lazio Region, “attaches great importance to risk capital as a tool to finance entrepreneurial initiatives that are strongly oriented towards technological innovation, especially if they are at the frontier and derived from technology transfer, as in the case of the investment in Cellex.”
Italian company with international collaborations
Cellex is based in Rome but has been international since its foundation in 2018 and collaborates with various national and international entities: CNR, the University of Tor Vergata in Rome and the Polytechnic of Turin, the University of Ghent in Belgium, Wageningen University in the Netherlands, the University of Applied Sciences Mittelhessen in Germany, and Tel Aviv University in Israel.
Sources:
https://www.lazioinnova.it/news/830-mila-euro-per-la-startup-medtech-cellex-in-un-round-guidato-da-innova-venture/