Start-up funding organizations can play an active role in the field of alternatives to animal experimentation, starting with the Banque Publique d’Investissement (BPI France).
In 2018, for example, BPI’s i-Lab innovation competition awarded “TreeFrog” a Grand Prix for its method of mass-producing stem cells and organoids for drug screening and the development of cell therapy initiatives.
Eden Microfluidics, a company specializing in microfluidics, was also awarded the i-Lab prize in 2019.
The BPI supported HTL Biotechnologie, a company founded in 1992. HTL has rapidly become a major industrial player, supplying injectable hyaluronic acid to leading companies in the pharmaceutical and medical sectors (aesthetic medicine, ophthalmology, orthopedics and rheumatology). The fruit of the discovery by Doctor of Pharmacy Michèle Ranson of a method for synthetically reproducing, by fermentation, the hyaluronic acid essential for tissue hydration, offers an alternative to traditional animal extraction: read here.
In the same spirit, the 2016 EDF Pulse prize in the e-health category went to Biomodex, which has developed a 3D printing-based device to train surgeons before an operation. These prints reproduce the biomechanical properties of the body, organs and tissues, so that surgeons feel as if they’re working on a duplicate of their patient.
Video demonstration : click here
