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ZeClinics has been awarded €1.87 million of EU funding to develop and commercialise "ZeCardio: High-throughput cardiotoxicity screening (HTS) with zebrafish embryo", an automated platform capable of analysing multiple parameters relating to the physiology of the heart and vascular system of zebrafish larvae. ZeCardio will be highly robotised and is capable of evaluating hundreds of new drugs daily, with high predictive confidence of their possible cardiotoxic impact in humans.
The initial ZeCardio software and prototype, successfully evaluated in the EU grant as excellent background, has been developed through a partnership with a major pharmaceutical company that was facilitated by the CRACK IT Solutions programme. The new funding will allow ZeClinics to further develop and commercialise the platform to make it easier to integrate into pharmaceutical development pipelines to assess cardiotoxicity of large libraries of new drugs. The advanced analysis platform allows non-invasive assessment of complex parameters such as heart atrial and ventricular frequencies, arrhythmias, and QT prolongation in drug treated living zebrafish larvae up to 50 times faster and cheaper than similar methods in rodents.
Davide D'amico, CEO of ZeClinics said: "Our CRACK IT funded project, the ZeGlobalTox, has been the ambassador for our entry in to the top league of innovative preclinical drug discovery industry. Thanks to that launching project on zebrafish-based organ toxicity drug assessment, ZeClinics has empowered its expertise and network, allowing us today to receive the most ambitious grant for SMEs in Europe. Only thanks to this step-by-step journey is it possible to reach big funding opportunities and therefore bring to the market and society new technologies that could change our lives."