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Swedish biotech company, Sidec Technologies AB,
today announced that Industrifonden (The Swedish Industrial
Development Fund) had invested 10 MSEK in the company.
Sidec is now pushing forward its commercial program to further
establish their protein analysis method and solutions to the
international pharmaceutical industry.
Industrifonden acquired a 14 per cent ownership stake in Sidec. The
new financial contribution will be used to further establish Sidec’s
solutions in Europe and USA, as well as to develop the business
strategy and future products.
“Sidec’s technology is unique and contributes to solve one of the
major bottlenecks in today’s pharmaceutical research”, says Hedvig
Saindrenan, investment manager at Industrifonden. “In this we see a
great economic potential for Sidec”.
The pharmaceutical industry is spending a vast amount of resources and
time on developing ideas that never result in approved drugs. Sidec
Technologies AB, originating from the Karolinska institute in
Stockholm, Sweden, has developed a method for 3-D visualization and
analysis of proteins and macromolecules in its biological context,
e.g. in the cell membrane. The method enables a better understanding
of protein conformation and functions in the human body, and presents
a new approach to evaluate their potential as drug targets or drugs.
Sharpening the early evaluation will save companies from spending
research on potential drugs or products that will fail to reach the
market.
There are other methods for analyzing protein 3-D conformation, but no
one of them can visualize individual proteins in the cell membrane,
where many drug targets in the human body resides.
“Having Industrifonden as an owner means we have resources to speed up
the company development”, says Gösta Sjöholm, CEO of Sidec. “We can
also benefit from their network of contacts, which is extremely
valuable for us to penetrate the market.
Today, Sidec offer its method, SET (Sidec™ Electron Tomography), for
contract research collaborations with biotech and pharmaceutical
companies world wide. The technology platform can potentially be
applied in other areas, e.g. medical imaging in cardiology and cancer
diagnostics.
Statements in this press release that are not strictly historical are
"forward-looking" statements, which involve a high degree of risk and
uncertainty. Such statements are only predictions, and the actual
events or results may differ materially from those projected in such
forward-looking statements.
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