Axiogenesis Secures Major Funding for its Expansion Course

COLOGNE, Germany, May 3, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Axiogenesis has acquired a major investment from Sino-German High-Tech Fund to further expand product development, strengthen its disease modeling capabilities and increase market presence.

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Sino-German High-Tech Fund (SGHF) is an investment fund jointly supported by Donghai Securities from China and High-Tech Gründerfonds from Germany. Its initiative signing ceremony was chaired by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang in 2015. Up to 300 million Euro are to be invested in German high-tech companies over the next five years through SGHF, which focuses on high-end manufacturing, renewable energy, bio-technology, TMT and healthcare sectors, etc. With its capital and industry resources, SGHF will strongly support German companies' market entry and expansion in China as well as their globalization strategies.

SGHF will gain over 10% of ownership through this capital increase of an undisclosed sum.

Dr. Alex Liu, Managing Director of SGHF:  "Axiogenesis is a leading provider of pure, tissue-specific cell types derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells. Through its innovation, efficiency, scientific excellence and patent position we expect that they will make a large and lasting impact in this already quickly growing field."

The investment will accelerate growth and market presence of Axiogenesis' products and applications in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and chemical industries. It will allow the company to continue moving towards becoming highly profitable in the stem cell business whilst significantly investing in new product development and disease modeling capabilities.

The current product portfolio of Axiogenesis includes several validated induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) derived cardiac and neural cell types. The investment is aimed at accelerating the cell type portfolio development and to drive the characterization of a whole suite of new products being launched. This year alone smooth muscle cells, beta-islet cells, sensory neurons and several new variants of the successful Cor.4U cardiac product will be launched.

Axiogenesis will also expand its customer facing team with more scientific support staff, application specialists and customer representatives not only in the established markets USA, EU and Japan but also opening new markets in China and Israel.

Axiogenesis can give unbiased expert advice in positioning, setting up, validating and troubleshooting assays. The company is a preferred partner to pharmaceutical companies and CROs in particular.

Utilising Axiogenesis' own patent portfolio and by securing key third party patent licenses, including the Yamanaka iPSC technology and the Geron stem cell patents, Axiogenesis can provide FTO to its customers for the use of iPSC-derived cells in screening applications, disease models (e.g. cardiac hypertrophy, LQT) and tissue models.

Dr. Bernd Fronhoff, CFO of Axiogenesis: "Axiogenesis may very likely be the first biotech company worldwide to become profitable in the iPSC-derived cell business model. We have managed this through a combination of excellent science, stringent focus and high efficiency in product development and production."

Axiogenesis AG

Axiogenesis was founded in 2001 and has been providing first in class stem cell-derived cells since 2007. Axiogenesis' current focus lies on the development and validation of functional assays using neuronal and cardiac cells. The flagship offering is the Cor.4U human cardiomyocyte product family including cardiac fibroblasts. Cor.4U cells are used in applications for single cell analysis to high-throughput screening (HTS) in early cardiac safety and safety assessment as well as in cardiovascular drug development. In the neural field Axiogenesis has launched iPSC-derived neuronal sub-types including dopaminergic neurons (Dopa.4U), peripheral neurons (Peri.4U), CNS neurons (CNS.4U) and Astrocytes (Astro.4U). Applying Axiogenesis' pure cell types into market-driven solutions, Axiogenesis offers licensing of proprietary disease models, e.g. Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM, also known as Cardiac Hypertrophy), and tissue models for compound screening as well as value-added fee-for-service assays for in vitro toxicology, safety pharmacology and drug discovery.

Donghai Securities

Donghai was founded in 1993. It is one of the first investment banks to work with a full license in China. Donghai is a leader with asset management exceeding 30 billion Euro in equity investments, as well as in fixed interest, mixed or other innovative banking activities. Through its equity investments and M&A activities, Donghai has built up solid relationships with hundreds of domestic companies, investment banks and other financial institutions. The broad industry coverage is realized with a plentiful flow of resources.

Media contact:
Felix von Haniel, Commercial Director
Axiogenesis AG
Email 
+49 2219988180

SOURCE Axiogenesis AG