FluoSphera secures € 1.23 million in financing
The Swiss HealthTech startup FluoSphera has successfully closed a financing round of 1.23 million euros (CHF 1.15 million). The round was led by Soulmates Ventures and a Swiss business angel, with participation from IndieBio New York.
FluoSphera will use the fresh capital to expand its commercial collaborations, grow its business development team and further develop its AI and automation capabilities for large-scale image analysis in drug discovery.
The challenge of drug development
The development of a new drug takes an average of 10 to 15 years and costs between 2 and 3 billion US dollars (Deloitte 2023). Despite this, over 90% of drug candidates fail in clinical trials. In oncology, success rates are even below 5% (Nature Reviews Drug Discovery).
Most failures occur because preclinical models do not adequately reflect human physiology. Classic 2D cell cultures do not capture organ interactions and animal models only incompletely reproduce human biology. This leads to overlooked toxicities, high costs and delayed market access.
Multiplexed human tissue models
FluoSphera has developed a patented multi-tissue platform that predicts drug effects in a human-like manner. Up to 6-7 human tissue types are combined in a single well, with proprietary fluorescent markers tracking each tissue type individually.
We are building the next generation of preclinical tools - faster, safer and more relevant to humans. This enables partners to bring safer and more effective therapies to market faster.
Dr. Clélia Bourgoint, CEO and Co-Founder
This allows researchers to
- Observecross-organ interactions
- Testefficacy and side effects in one experiment
- Prepare animal or human studies more efficiently
Market validation and cooperation partners
FluoSphera is already working with international pharmaceutical and biotech companies, particularly in the field of antibody drug conjugates (ADCs). Partners such as Revvity (High-Throughput Screening) use the platform for more efficient preclinical tests.
Potential savings: 100-500 million US dollars per drug candidate, by reducing development risks, clinical costs and time to market. The platform also supports compliance with new regulatory frameworks, such as the planned FDA Modernization Act 3.0 in the USA.
Funding for growth and international expansion
With the new financing, FluoSphera:
- Strengthen business development to scale commercial partnerships
- Expand platform integration into preclinical development pipelines
- Expand AI layer for image analysis
- Growth in USA and EU, first steps into Asia
FluoSphera's long-term goal is to become the industry standard for systemic in vitro testing, reducing the use of animal models and enabling precision medicine approaches.
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