LONDON (Alliance News) - ReNeuron Group PLC on Monday said it has been awarded a GBP2.1 million grant with the UK government's Innovate UK innovation agency advance its emerging exosome nanomedicine platform.
The grant was awarded under Innovate UK's Developing Regenerative Medicine & Cell Therapies scheme.
The money will fund a collaborative programme of work to be undertaken by ReNeuron, as lead participant, and its collaborators on the grant, the Cell Therapy Catapult and the Department of Biochemical Engineering at University College London.
"ReNeuron is a global leader in the exciting new field of exosome therapeutics and we are therefore delighted to have won this prestigious grant from Innovate UK," Olav Hellebø, chief executive, said in a statement.
Exosomes are lipid-based nanoparticles secreted from all cells, according to ReNeuron, which said the nanoparticles are believed to play an important role in the transfer of beneficial proteins and particularly non-coding ribonucleic acid from one cell to another.
ReNeuron says its researchers have identified a "novel mechanism by which exosomes from its clinical-grade CTX stem cells may inhibit the growth and migration of cancer cells in pre-clinical models of the disease".
"The grant application process was highly competitive and subjected our exosome nanomedicine programme to expert technical peer review. As a result, the award of the grant represents a strong endorsement of the potential of this emerging advanced therapy platform and will enable us to rapidly progress its development towards initial clinical application," Hellebø said.
By Samuel Agini; samagini@alliancenews.com; @samuelagini
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Reneuron (RENE)