Ncardia announces completion of €10.5M Investment Round

Stem cell technology innovator continues rapid growth, plans further global expansion to become the global leader in hiPSC-based drug discovery & development solutions

Gosselies, Belgium, 17th November 2017 – Ncardia, an emerging drug discovery and development stem cell technology company whose mission is to deliver cardiac and neural drug discovery and safety solutions based on its best-in-class human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived technology, today announced the completion of a €10.5 million Series B financing round. The round was led by Épimède, a Belgium venture capital firm.

Ncardia is a privately held company with operations in Europe and the US, that produces and commercializes high-quality, fully functional human iPSC derived cardiovascular and neuronal cell types. Using its cell products, Ncardia develops and commercializes electrophysiology-, biochemistry- and contraction-based assay services for predictive safety pharmacology, toxicology testing and drug efficacy screenings. In addition the company has built up a strong portfolio of patents covering the use of stem cell models for these applications. Ncardia believes that stem cell technology fast-tracks the delivery of better medicines to patients by improving the drug discovery process.

Stefan Braam, CEO of Ncardia, commented: “At Ncardia, important progress has been made on product and service programs for drug safety and efficacy screening. We have built strong and dedicated teams for research & development, manufacturing, drug discovery services, and sales & marketing, to execute our plan to become the trusted leader in human iPSC-based drug discovery solutions. I am delighted with the continued support from our current investors and I am very happy to welcome Épimède as our new investor.”

Marc Foidart, Investment Manager at Épimède said: “Ncardia had a very strong and encouraging start. We are convinced of the added value Ncardia will deliver in the coming years. We are very pleased to join the strong syndicate of existing investors and to support Ncardia growth acceleration.”

The participants in this funding round include Épimède, InnovationQuarter, SRIW, SambrInvest, Vesalius Biocapital and SFPI-FPIM. The funds raised will be used by Ncardia to speed-up its already promising international growth, to develop the next generation safety assays and to expand capabilities in the cardiovascular drug discovery and high throughput screening domain.

For more information please contact:

Ncardia
Stefan Braam, CEO
Stefan.braam@ncardia.com
+31 (0)71 332 2230

About Ncardia

Ncardia (www.ncardia.com) believes that stem cell technology will help to get better medicines to patients faster. The company develops, produces and commercializes highly predictive human cellular assay systems for safety and efficacy testing. The cardiac product portfolio encompasses a broad panel of hiPSC-derived Cardiomyocytes (Pluricyte^®, Cor.4U^® and vCor.4U^®) as well as cardiac fibroblasts (FibroCor.4U^®). In addition, the company delivers the Cardioplate^TM product line of quality-controlled ready-to-use assay plates. The neural cell portfolio contains the pan-neuronal product CNS.4U^®, the peripheral neurons product Peri.4U^®, and astrocyte product Astro.4U^®.

Ncardia is committed to delivering to its clients working assays solutions through in-house assay development and extensive support. The company has a wide range of supported applications and compound assay services such as electrophysiology-, biochemistry- and contraction-based assays for predictive safety pharmacology and toxicology testing. In addition, Ncardia develops and provides its customers with a broad portfolio of cardiovascular services from disease modeling to cardiovascular drug efficacy screening.

Ncardia is based in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and the USA. The company is privately held and has been established following the merger of Pluriomics and Axiogenesis.