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Rhenovia Pharma, a biotechnology company created in 2007, today announces it has had its position confirmed as world leader in the field of biosimulation for research into drugs for treating diseases of the central nervous system. Confirmation was received from the “Global Biosimulation Technology Market (2012-2017)” study by the independent company MarketsandMarkets (USA), published in November 2012.
The recognition of Rhenovia’s global leadership crowns the first phase of the development plan for the company, which will now accelerate its growth. After the first round of seed funding of EUR 350,000 in 2009, Rhenovia is preparing a second round of investment to support its development and reinforce its position as world leader. The company plans to recruit around 20 new employees in France over the next five years.
Rhenovia also plans to accelerate its international development by strengthening its American subsidiary, founded in Boston in 2012, where it plans to hire around ten new employees. The company also intends to create new direct operations or partnerships in Europe, Asia and Latin America.
“We are delighted to have received this recognition from MarketsandMarkets of our status as leader in the field of biosimulation for the CNS. Today, biosimulation is an indispensable technology within the pharmaceutical industry and Rhenovia is becoming the preferred partner, with its ability to support all market participants by providing services or research and development partnerships,” said Dr. Serge Bischoff, CEO of Rhenovia. “The results of this study have provided further encouragement to us in continuing to develop this promising technology, which can not only be used in numerous areas of human healthcare, but also in the food and defense industries. The founders, the employees and even the shareholders of Rhenovia are driven by strongly shared passion and ethics, placing people at the heart of the company’s development strategy.”
Rhenovia has developed a unique modeling technology, which makes it possible to reproduce on a computer the cellular and molecular mechanisms of the brain and nervous transmission. The company uses its technology to create computer simulations of the condition of healthy patients or patients affected by pathologies of the nervous system, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, schizophrenia or depression. These simulations are used to predict the efficacy and toxicity of molecules and combinations of molecules, without having to resort to lengthy and expensive in vitro/in vivo experiments.
Within the context of services and R&D partnerships, Rhenovia’s bioinformatics simulations allow biotech and pharmaceutical companies to shorten the development time for new drugs, whilst also reducing risks and costs. They also aim to anticipate any lack of efficacy or side effects within the products tested and thus to support health authorities in their preclinical and clinical authorization decisions.
Scientifically, the relevance of Rhenovia’s biosimulation technology has been demonstrated by the discovery in 2012 of a new candidate drug for Huntington’s disease, the identification of toxicity or side effects of candidate drugs and by a number of other research projects relating to rare diseases, defense and the food industry.
The global market for biosimulation in drug R&D is estimated to be USD 432 million (EUR 324 million) and is expected to reach USD 1.2 billion by 2017 (EUR 900 million), thanks to an annual growth of 18.5 per cent. Biosimulation used in the preclinical and clinical phases represents 60 per cent of the total market (2011 figures – MarketsandMarkets study).
“Biosimulation is expected to progress significantly over the next ten years, under the impetus of advances in the fields of systems biology and computational biology,” said the analyst in charge of the study at MarketsandMarkets. “Pharmaceutical companies have now realized the importance of biosimulation in relation to other technologies, from the perspective of R&D that is increasingly based on translational research.”
About Rhenovia Pharma SAS
Rhenovia Pharma SAS is a private biotechnology company specialized in the development and optimization of treatments for Alzheimer’s and other diseases of the central and peripheral nervous systems. Over the past few years, Rhenovia has become a fully-fledged research-and-development company possessing a range of drug discovery and development technologies, an emerging pipeline of drug candidates, a unique prototype for controlled transdermal drug delivery and a high-performance analytical technique for purifying proteins that serves to identify biomarkers of drug efficacy.
Rhenovia is based in Mulhouse, France and Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States and currently employs 20 people in France, Switzerland, Germany and the USA. It has its head office in Mulhouse, where it was founded in 2007 to develop innovative solutions aimed at optimizing the drug discovery and development process for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. Since it was founded, it has raised a total of six million euros from commercial contracts, French and European research projects, public tenders, private investors (Alsace Business Angels, SODIV), public funding and seed capital funds, in addition to which it relies on the equity of its founding shareholders and other Rhenovia staff members (83 per cent of its total capital).
About Rhenovia Inc.
Rhenovia Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Rhenovia Pharma. It was incorporated in Delaware in 2012 and its activities are concentrated in Boston, Massachusetts and Los Angeles, California. Rhenovia Inc. was set up to extend Rhenovia Pharma’s biosimulation services and partnerships to North America. Over the medium term, the company will also have the task of developing and commercializing the company’s pipeline of drug candidates identified using its biosimulation approach.
For further information, go to: http://www.rhenovia.com
