Eurostars grants project funding for High-throughput ImmunoTherapy Screening- HITS

15 December 2022

Leiden, The Netherlands, December 15, 2022 – A total grant sum of EUR €2.13 million, of which total subsidy ~ €995k has been awarded to a multidisciplinary project, named ‘HITS’. The European consortium consist of four collaborating partners: VitroScan, Imuno, Biocopy, Utrecht University. The project uniquely combines expertise in predictive ex vivo testing of immunotherapies (VitroScan), the latest advances in machine learning and protein structure prediction for therapeutic development targeting cancer neoantigens (Imuno), combining next generation microarrays with highSCORE system and measurement of binding kinetic of thousands of molecules (Biocopy), computational modeling (Utrecht University) to develop a first in its kind integrated High-throughput ImmunoTherapy Screening [HITS] platform.

The platform will facilitate reduced spending on drug development projects with little commercial potential, to protect patients from harmful therapies, and to enable the roll-out of personalized oncology for all populations on a global scale, companies are in need of accurate, fast and low-cost screening methods that can predict the safety and efficacy of these therapies in the early stages of drug development. This will enable companies to make better informed strategic decisions to either stop or accelerate their very expensive drug development efforts.

Eurostars is part of the European Partnership on Innovative SMEs. The partnership is co-funded by the European Union through Horizon Europe.