UCC spin-out company ProvascTec awarded €2.1 million research grant

16 Sep 2024

A lead product from UCC spin-out company ProVascTec has been awarded a €2.1 million research grant from Eurostars, part of the European Partnership on Innovative SMEs. The partnership is co-funded by the European Union through Horizon Europe.

The product, titled NufloCelTx, will offer a new treatment solution for patients suffering from critical limb ischemia, which is a severe blockage in the arteries that leads to reduced bloodflow in the extremities. NufloCelTx combines the angiogenic properties of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs - a type of stem cell that can develop into different types of tissues, such as bone, cartilage, and fat cells, and have the ability to repair and regenerate tissues) with a proprietary, patent protected delivery system.

The nufloCelTx solution is based on three building blocks consisting of pro-angiogenic MSCs that help stimulate or support the development of new blood vessels, embedded in an electrospun, biodegradable mesh and delivered directly into the bloodstream through an artery, allowing it to quickly reach the targeted area. Once placed in front of the arterial blockage, micro-ruptures in the arterial wall trigger the secretion of growth factors and cytokines that recruit nearby epithelial and smooth muscle cells to connect with a nearby collateral vessel with unobstructed blood flow, effectively establishing a naturally occurring bypass around the arterial blockage. 

ProVascTec is a Cork-based spin-out from UCC and is located at the UCC Gateway Incubation Hub. ProVascTec’s underlying technology was invented and developed by Prof Noel Caplice - ProVascTec’s Chief Scientific Officer, during his time at the Mayo Clinic and further refined at UCC where he is Chair of Cardiovascular Sciences. Dr Holger B. Müller, CFA, CEO & Co-Founder of ProVascTec joined the team after a three-year search for ProvascTec’s CEO. A trained scientist-turned innovation manager, Dr Müller has been instrumental in transitioning several innovations along the development stages and launching products into international markets.

The development of NufloCelTx is led by ProVascTec, with two consortium partners - Empa, the Swiss federal laboratories for materials science and technology and Cellcolabs, a Sweden-based CDMO out of the Karolinska Institute focused on making MSCs available at scale.

The funding will advance the development of NufloCelTx over the next two years to deliver a Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP)-approvable, scalable system. During the project, the consortium partners will combine their respective capabilities in pharmaceutical development, electrospinning, and MSC manufacturing to showcase the possibilities of decentralized, European-based research and development of a category-defining novel treatment solution.