European Innovation Council Accelerator Grants Pixelgen Technologies $14.7 Million
Pixelgen Technologies, a trailblazing biotech company, has been awarded €12.5 million ($14.7 million) in grant and equity financing from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator. This significant investment marks a milestone in the company's mission to advance single-cell protein interactomics, a novel omics dimension that promises to revolutionise biomedical research.
The funding will accelerate the expansion of Pixelgen's Proxiome Kit into new high-impact areas, including cell-to-cell interactions, communication, and the analysis of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues. This expansion will broaden the kit's usefulness to a variety of preserved clinical samples previously difficult to analyse at this resolution.
At the heart of the Proxiome Kit is the proprietary Proximity Network Assay, a groundbreaking technology that delivers nanoscale spatial analysis of immune cell proteins at scale. This technology, recently featured on BioRxiv, offers the highest resolution of single-cell analyses by providing a new omics dimension: protein interactomics.
With the Proxiome Kit, researchers can investigate protein interactions and cell surface arrangements at the single-cell level, providing detailed insights into disease mechanisms, drug responses, and biomarker discovery. The kit's applications span cancer, hematology, immunology, and cell therapy, where detailed protein interaction maps can offer novel insights into these complex fields.
Simon Fredriksson, co-founder and CEO of Pixelgen, expressed his excitement about receiving the highly competitive funding from the EIC. He highlighted the enthusiasm from leading researchers and emphasised that the EIC funding will accelerate the kit's expansion into these new high-impact areas, reinforcing the company’s role in driving transformative advances in biomedical research.
The EIC recognised Pixelgen for its "transformative technologies and strong commercial promise," selecting the company from 150 applicants to receive funding. The funding was awarded under the European Union's Horizon Europe program, which supports innovative start-ups with disruptive technologies.
The positive responses from leading researchers in both industry and academia underscore the potential impact of the Proxiome Kit. By enabling high-capacity, high-resolution protein interactome mapping in single cells, the technology promises to deepen understanding of complex cellular functions and microenvironments. This enhanced understanding could accelerate drug development by revealing novel therapeutic targets and mechanisms of action.
Moreover, the insights from the Proxiome Kit may advance precision medicine, enabling treatments tailored to specific molecular profiles within tumours or other diseased tissues. Its application in cell therapy research could optimise the development and monitoring of engineered cells by revealing functional protein networks in therapeutic cell populations.
In summary, the Pixelgen Proxiome Kit stands to fundamentally enhance the resolution and scope of protein interaction studies in single cells, with broad implications for understanding disease biology and developing advanced diagnostics and therapies in cancer, hematology, immunology, and cell therapy.
- The EIC Accelerator funding awarded to Pixelgen Technologies will not only aid in advancing the Proxiome Kit's expansion into new fields such as cell-to-cell interactions and analysis of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissues, but it will also boost the company's efforts in the realm of science and technology.
- As the Proxiome Kit is at the forefront of delivering nanoscale spatial analysis of immune cell proteins, its technology, based on the proprietary Proximity Network Assay, represents a significant contribution to the field of science, particularly the dimension of protein interactomics, and the future of technology in biomedical research.
