On June 15, 2022, the Institut Curie and Microsoft unveiled outlines of their new joint program called Biotech Scaler Program. This system aims to support biotech and medtech in their growth.
Launch of the Biotech Scaler Program
With this program, Microsoft and the Institut Curie want accelerate the development of biotech and medtech, by providing them with technological and analytical tools. Start-ups will also be supported in their search for funding. Today, four startups are already part of the program: MabSilico, WhiteLab Genomics, Ose Immunotherapeutics and Caranx. Cellenza, an IT consulting firm, expert in Microsoft technologies and agile methods, is also part of the system.
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The idea of the Biotech Scaler Program is to associate startups that develop artificial intelligence platforms to identify new “drug candidate” and start-ups specializing in biotechnology, which develop new platforms in immunotherapy, gene or cell therapy, to treat cancers, rare or orphan diseases. Thus, the Biotech Scaler Program offers technological support with, in particular, free credits on Azure, access to advice from devops teams on the subject of digital architecture and support during the scale up phase.
The importance of digital for biotech and medtech
According to Dr. Amaury Martin, Deputy Director in charge of Technology Transfer, Industrial Partnerships and Data at Institut Curie, “Being able to go from promise to product is the main challenge for biotechs. By integrating the Biotech Scaler Program into our incubator, we provide additional support to these young companies. The early choice of a good digital architecture is essential to be credible in discussions with investors, industrialists or regulatory authorities and to differentiate yourself from global competition.”.
Biotechs and medtechs generally do in the face of long development cycles and require significant capital injections to complete their research and hope to be able to market a product or service. The Biotech Scaler Program is a new kind of support system, designed to meet the specific needs of biotech startups. Microsoft and the Institut Curie provide them with a range of tools and digital skills which should logically allow them to grow in the right conditions.