BII News - Your top 10 news in 2020

Your top 10 news in 2020

Your top 10 news in 2020

At BII, we have checked the archives to find out which of our many news got the most reads from you in 2020. Revisit the stories or discover what you might have missed in the past year. To get our news in your inbox each month, feel free to sign up for our newsletter.

If you want to join us, we currently have open calls for our program BII Venture Lab and Creation House.

Your top 10 news in 2020

1
BII funds therapeutics start-up from Aarhus University
The pharma company Teitur Trophics that targets neurodegenerative diseases joined the BII Creation House program at the beginning of 2020. In this article, CEO Simon Mølgaard answers some questions about his team’s research and how their
research has the potential to save lives.

2
BioInnovation Institute awards EUR 14M to eight innovative and promising start-ups and research projects
BII awarded EUR 14M (104M DKK) to eight early-stage life science start-ups and research projects. There were five early-stage start-up companies accepted into the Creation House program with EUR 1.3M (DKK 10M) in funding for each start-up company, and three university-based research projects accepted into the Faculty program awarded up to EUR 2.4M (DKK 18M) over three years. Learn more about the different projects here.

3
The Novo Nordisk Foundation establishes BioInnovation Institute as an independent foundation
The Novo Nordisk Foundation announced in December that BioInnovation Institute (BII), a Novo Nordisk Foundation initiative, has been established as an independent foundation in recognition of its success incubating and accelerating world-class life science research. Learn more about the development of BII and our future journey in this article.

4
Meet the bio-industrial start-up: SecondCircle
The bio-industrial start-up SecondCircle is working to cultivate organisms and make them feed off the gas of industrial producers to save the environment and enable a circular economy by converting CO2 into valuable products. Meet the CEO Torbjørn Ølshøj Jensen in this article and learn about their research, and their experience being part of the BII Business Acceleration Academy.

5
Nine early-stage projects receive PoC grant from BII
Nine innovative projects within health tech, bio-industrials and therapeutics were awarded the Proof of Concept (PoC) grant by BioInnovation Institute in June. Learn more about the different projects here.

6
Eight early-stage projects granted by BII
At the beginning of 2020, eight promising projects with commercial potential received the Proof of Concept Grant of up to DKK 1M from BII. Learn more about the projects in this article.

7
What keeps great start-ups from raising funding
“The biggest challenge for any start-up is fundraising. In the past two years, we have worked to establish an incubator that can help the many promising early-stage companies break through this fundraising barrier.” Bobby Soni, CBO at BII wrote our newsletter editorial in October. Read more about how to overcome the challenges of raising funds in the article.

8
Immune therapy start-up funded with DKK 10M
The start-up PokeACell was accepted in the BII program, Creation House with DKK 10M in funding. They target two of the most severe skin cancers today: Metastatic Melanoma and Merkel Cell Carcinoma with T cell therapy. Learn more about them and their research here.

9
New instrument will foster ground-breaking innovation
In January, we proudly initiated the BII Faculty program. This is a collaboration with Danish Universities to create a unique interdisciplinary environment focused on commercialization that can foster novel ideas and lead to new spin-outs. Our CEO, Jens Nielsen welcomes this new program in our newsletter editorial in February.

10
New BII funding opportunity for research projects and start-ups
The PreSeed program was launched in 2020 offering a funding opportunity for research projects and start-ups. If you want to join BII, we currently have open calls for our programs Venture Lab and Creation House.

Thanks for your interest and support in 2020!

Read our impact report and get acquainted with the progress that BII experienced during 2022

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Impact Report 2022