Bio Studio project: Henriette Svarre Nielsen
Health Tech
Read moreWomen’s Health Initiative
About the initiative
BII’s women’s health initiative aims to strengthen the European ecosystem for innovative translational research and start-ups that address the high medical unmet needs within women’s health.
Part of women’s health initiative activities are supported by a grant from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
As part of this joint initiative, BII will conduct a thorough landscape analysis and identify leading research and start-up opportunities for women’s health, with the potential for future funding from BII and partners.
BII will also undertake community building and awareness creating activities with selected key partners within the ecosystem.
Please contact Johanna Roostalu at e-mail: jro@bii.dk if you have any questions.
Meet our Women’s Health Team
Jens Nielsen
CEO, BioInnovation Institute
“BII is delighted to have secured this prestigious grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that will help us drive innovation in this important field as we strive to deliver novel solutions for a global unmet medical need. It enables us to put in place the resources needed to scout and support important initiatives to accelerate improvements in women’s health – a priority for society and an area of strategic interest for BII. We are excited to drive innovation in this important field, and we will strive to deliver novel solutions for a global unmet medical need.”
About BII
The BioInnovation Institute Foundation (BII) is an international commercial foundation with a nonprofit objective supported by the Novo Nordisk Founda-tion. BII operates an incubator to accelerate world-class life science innovation that drives the development of new solutions by early life science start-ups for the benefit of people and society.
BII, located in Copenhagen, Denmark, offers start-ups and early-stage projects within health tech, therapeutics, and bio-industrials state-of-the-art labs, vibrant office facilities, business development, start-up business incubation, access to high-level mentoring and international networks, plus unique funding opportuni-ties of up to 1.3 million euro per start-up and 2.4 million euro per project.
Since the inauguration of BII in November 2018, BII has awarded 44 million euros to 79 high-growth start-up companies.
Supported start-up companies and projects
PI Henriette Svarre Nielsen
Henriette Svarre Nielsen is a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology and an expert in reproduction and recurrent pregnancy loss. Parallel to her clinical and academic career focusing on pathophysiology in reproduction and women’s health, Henriette Svarre Nielsen has successfully founded and chaired Maternity Foundation and co-founded OvaCure. Maternity Foundation aims to save lives in childbirth and develops evidence‐based solutions and is a strong actor within the emerging field of health tech. The Safe Delivery App developed by the Foundation has successfully instructed over 160,000 health care workers in Sub‐Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia.
The goal of the Bio Studio project is to develop a diagnostic test that can inform couples after a pregnancy loss to guide relevant actions.
Notify Therapeutics focuses on the initial ovarian follicle development to help infertile women who are not benefitting from today’s standard hormone treatment. The company uses first-in-class drug-inducing factors that regulated the intracellular AKT pathway; a major driver of follicle activation and a signal transductive pathway that promotes survival and growth in response to extracellular signals. The company has identified and validated a compound that activates the AKT pathway in a controlled manner, and thus supports the activation of dormant follicles, a pre-request for fertility.
Cirqle Biomedical has developed an innovative contraceptive for women, without the many side effects of hormonal birth control. This product makes cervical mucus temporarily impenetrable to sperm. The barrier is established by a molecule that strongly interacts with cervical mucus and thereby reinforce the mucus to make it impenetrable for sperm cells. Sperm cells are trapped in the cervical mucus and maintained in the vaginal cavity where the low pH environment of the vagina deactivates them.
Cirqle was formerly part of the BII Business Acceleration Academy, and the Creation House program.
Learn more about Cirqle Biomedical here
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