KU Leuven's Centre for Drug Design and Discovery has closed a $67.5m commercialization fund with the support of the European Investment Fund.
The Centre for Drug Design and Discovery (CD3) at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven) unveiled a €60m ($67.5m) fund today aimed at commercialising biomedical research by academic institutions.
The university’s tech transfer office KU Leuven Research & Development and the European Investment Fund (EIF), an EU agency to fund small and medium-sized enterprises, jointly provided the capital for this third fund.
CD3 was established in 2006 as an investment fund and tech transfer platform by KU Leuven Research & Development and EIF with an initial €8m in capital. In 2010, the centre obtained a further €16m in funding.
CD3 offers drug discovery expertise and financial support to both academic researchers and small businesses, sourcing projects from Belgian, other European and international institutions. Its portfolio includes potential treatments for HIV, Dengue virus, Alzheimer’s disease and cancer.
The centre both licenses drug candidates to pharmaceutical firms but also sets up spinout companies, and will use the €60m fund to advance candidates into clinical development both with industrial partners and on its own.
Patrick Chaltin, managing director of CD3, said: “Turning innovative science from universities into good drug candidates by combining academic and industrial expertise with drug discovery capabilities and financial resources, has become a promising approach for discovering new drugs.
“With this new fund, we can now build on our initial successes and further dig into new unexplored avenues for the discovery of new medicines that address some of the most serious medical needs of our time.
“We are delighted that the European Investment Fund and KU Leuven Research & Development offer us the support and financial means to broaden our scope and to extend our capabilities.”
Piyush Unalkat, head of technology transfer investments at the European Investment Fund, said: “Since its inception in 2006, CD3 has built an excellent reputation within the EU drug discovery community as a translational centre and has developed a promising pipeline of potential new medicines.
“KU Leuven is a first class academic institution and ranks as the most innovative university in the EU. The EIF remains firmly committed to support the translation of good academic science to the market through providing long-term and patient capital.”
