Nanomedicine Award winners officially announced at BIO-Europe conference

The winners of the first ever Nanomedicine Award were officially announced during the Nanomedicine Panel at BIO-Europe conference in Vienna, November 4th 2013. The Award review Board agreed to distinguish two projects in two different categories: The winners are Endomagnetics Ltd in the nanodiagnostic category and the I-CARE project from Linköping University in the regenerative medicine category.

"We have received a lot of exceptional applications for the Nanomedicine Award, with 23 candidates coming from all over the world and from different horizons and application areas. It has been incredibly hard for the judging committee to select the winners that are excelling in their innovative nanomedicine approaches", said Laurent Levy, chairman of the Award review board and vice-chairman of the European Technology Platform Nanomedicine ETPN that founded the Nanomedicine Award. "It is a great pool of examples to show the true potential of nanomedicine in providing important solutions for currently unmet medical needs and a major opportunity to enhance the synergies of the field with the pharmaceutical industry, a crucial stakeholder in the development of products towards the patients."

The nanodiagnostic Award winning company, Endomagnetics Ltd, is developing advanced magnetic sensing technology to increase access to the standard of care in breast cancer staging by providing an alternative approach to locating sentinel lymph nodes (www.endomagnetics.com).

"Endomagnetics is very honoured to have been selected for an inaugural Nanomedicine Award, particularly given the global candidates and great promise of this convergent industry. This award enhances the medtech facet of nanomedicine and increases our visibility to potential partners as we develop further across the nanomedicine field." said Dr Eric Mayes, CEO of Endomagnetics Ltd.

The jury also decided to award in the regenerative medicine category the candidate Linköping University for the European Project entitled Integrative nano-Composites And Regeneration of the Eye (I-CARE), a regenerative medicine‐based treatment for Corneal Herpes Simplex Keratitis (HSK), that simultaneously treat the disease while regenerating the damaged cornea>

"For the I-CARE team, the Nanomedicine Award 2013 is an acknowledgement of our hard work and multidisciplinary approach to successfully extending regenerative medicine approaches to restoring organs that are failing due to immunopathologic causes, in this case, corneas with herpes simplex keratitis, the leading cause of infectious blindness worldwide. We hope that we will successfully bridge the translational gap from clinical need to clinical trials, allowing us to continue to work together and with others within the nanomedicine community in further European projects", said May Griffith, Professor at Linköping University, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine.

Award winners benefited from a full registration (including partnering) for BIO-Europe 2013 and presented their application in a 5-minute speech at the Nanomedicine Panel Discussion during the event. In addition, the winners will be granted a 15-minute presentation slot during the CLINAM conference 2014 in Basel, Switzerland, along with 1 year's free ETPN membership and two days consultation by the members of the ETPN Translational Advisory Board for experts' advice and guidance. The Nanomedicine Award was handed over by the award-sponsors Nanobiotix and EBD Group.

Source: http://www.etp‐nanomedicine.eu