Achilles heel a competitive strength: European Investment Bank backs Innocoll AG with €25m loan
The cash comes from the European Union’s €80bn ($86bn) Horizon 2020 research fund, specifically the InnovFin innovation financing programme which is designed to cater for smaller companies embarking on R&D programmes.
Ireland-based Innocoll has a range of delivery technologies all of which are based on purified collagen extracted from the Achilles tendons of cows and horses.
The delivery technologies are used to administer treatments either as surgical implants or topically applied films or creams.
The CollRX technology, for example, is a sponge made of collagen that is inserted into wound to deliver TGR-265, a healing compound developed by Innocoll’s Australian partner TGR Biosciences under an agreement signed in 2007.
Clinical programmes
Company CEO Tony Zook said the loan will product development, highlighting clinical trial programmes for its Phase III post-surgical pain and diabetes related infections product candidates as primary recipients.
He also said the European Bank money would help its manufacturing division Syntacoll complete expansion of a production and R&D facility in Saal, Germany.
The loan is the first to be issued by the InnovFin fund and was described as a equity-risk sharing transaction by EIB vice-president Wilhelm Molterer, who said: “Innocoll’s commitment to research and development is truly remarkable.
“The company concentrates most of its resources on R&D activities, currently dedicating multiple times its revenues to R&D” he continued, adding that such companies “contribute significantly to Europe’s overall competitiveness."
