CRESIB presents first spin-off, Innovex Therapeutics
The new company will focus on research towards a potential malaria vaccine
The Barcelona Center for International Health Research (CRESIB), which belongs to the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), has presented its first spin-off, called Innovex Therapeutics. It is devoted to researching and developing extracellular vesicles to potentially be applied in malaria vaccines or diagnostic tests.
This new spin-off of the CRESIB will carry out its research at the Germans Trias i Pujol Health Sciences Research Institute (IGTP) facilities for the first three years. The company’s founders are: Hernando A. Del Portillo, ICREA researcher at the CRESIB, and Francesc E. Borràs, researcher at the IGTP and professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. The idea for this spin-off came up in 2012 when Del Portillo and Borràs met at the first meeting of the International Society of Extracellular Vesicles (ISEV).
Innovex Therapeutics bases its research on a study done in mice that showed that exosomes derived from young red blood cells infected with Plasmodium vivax protect against malaria. The results have been patented in Europe (and are protected in eight additional countries) and now the spin-off hopes to apply them to create a vaccine against this disease.
More information is available in the CRESIB article.