Biotech firm BlackLabBio has been spun out from the University College Dublin to commercialise engineered protein products.
The Ireland-based firm, which has launched with €500,000 ($690k) in support from the Science Foundation Ireland and government agency Enterprise Ireland, is targeting large biotech companies with its products, and is already working with Novartis and AstraZeneca. It is estimated the engineered protein products market will be worth $168m globally by 2017.
David O’Connell, founder at BlackLabBio, said: “We have developed a patented technology in the protein engineering space that can potentially save producers a lot of money. They face extremely steep production costs associated with highly complex manufacturing processes so an innovative technology that cuts cost is of major interest to them. What we’re doing represents a radical new way of purifying protein that can save time as well as money. We are already working with a number of producers in the areas of biotherapeutics, kit reagents and sensor technologies.”
