De-risked development model

Investors

UNICYTE’s current 100% shareholder is prepared to offer a small group of financial investors the opportunity to participate in the company’s significant growth.

New investors

FMC seeks a group of competent financial partners to act as sparring partners in the further development of this important asset

FMC is prepared to forego rights outside of its core kidney indication area to maximize the overall value of Unicyte.

Investment is structured as bridge to an IPO as early as 2024/2025

Our edge

UCD/HCC/CKD:

  • No other competitor in targeted patient segments  
  • Superior safety profile
  • Disease modifying & curative treatment 
  • Extensive pre-clinical data

Manufacturing:

  • Highly expandable cells: 30 passages without change in growth kinetics or genetic stability 
  • GMP platforms and potency assays fully established
  • Stronger manufacturing robustness

Intellectual Property:

  • Unlike MSCs and iPSCs, fully patent protected cell line as a starting material; also the fact that the IP Department of FMC supported the project from the early days until today

Overall:

  • Broadest experience in developing EV-based assets with globally leading team
  • Proprietary products, fully patent-protected in both cell therapy and nano-Extracellular Vesicles field

Islets:

  • Entire islets, not just beta-cells 
  • No tumorigenicity seen with proprietary stem cells (HLSCs) used as starting material for islet formation
  • Efficient manufacturing process

Globally leading team

Florian Jehle - CEO & Chairman of the Board

Former Managing Director of Fresenius Medical Care Ventures. Former Partner at Catenion. >20 years of experience in life science industries.

Dr. Frank Weber - Chief Medical Officer

Former Head of Medical at InterMune Inc. Former Head of R&D Merck KGaA.

 

Colin Buck - COO

Former Senior Manager at Catenion. 20 years’ experience in the life sciences.

 

Dr. Alain Pralong - CTO

Former Head of Manufacturing and COO in various biotech and big pharma companies. Manufacturing expert in Cell & Gene Therapy, 20 years of experience.

Prof. Giovanni Camussi - Head of Research

World-leading scientist in stem cells & nEVs with >550 publications. Professor Emeritus at the University of Torino.

 

Dr. Valentina Fonasato - Head of Cell Factory

QP of University of Torino’s translational medicine Cell Factory. Inventor on four patents, and author on a substantial number of publications.

Prof. Stefania Bruno - Head nEV Research

Associate professor at University of Torinio. Widely published, with more than 10k citations in the fields around stem cell induced tissue regeneration by EVs.

Dr. Maria Beatriz Herrera Sanchez - Head HLSC Research

Leading researcher on human liver stem cells. Inventor on 5 patents.

Kees van Ophem - Member of the Board

Executive Vice President and Global General Counsel for Fresenius Medical Care.

Dr. Olaf Schermeier - Member of the Board

CEO Critical Care at Fresenius Medical Care.

 

Dr. Peter Grossmann - Member of the Board

Managing Director at Fresenius AG.

 

Prof. Jonathan Knowles - Advisor

Former President of Group Research and Corp. Exec. Committee member at Roche. Former Board member Genentech & Chugai, Former Chairman of Immonocore Ltd. and Adaptimmune Ltd. Non-executive member of a number of Biotech company boards.

Prof. Paul Robbins - Advisor

Prof. of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics at University of Minnesota. Former Professor Molecular Medicine, Metabolism and Aging at Scripps Research Institute. Co-founder of 2 biotech companies.

Prof. Camillo Ricordi - Advisor

Head of Diabetes Research Institute and Cell Transplant Center at University of Miami, FL, USA. Leading scientist in the field of clinical islet transplantation. Appointed by the Italian Minister of Health to Italy’s Supreme Council of Health.

Our partners

We are open to a wide variety of collaborations and partnerships along and within our entire value chain – research, manufacturing and development through to commercialisation. We have an indirect cost rate capped at 30% of direct costs for all of our industry-sponsored research grants to universities. If you would like to know more, please contact us at collaboration@unicyte.ch.

 

Achievements timeline

Unicyte was found integrating scientific excellence and
entrepreurial Leadership

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