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The start of the PHOENIX project

PHOENIX
Pharmaceutical Open Innovation Test Bed for Enabling Nano-pharmaceutical Innovative Products

11 project partners from academia and industry have joined forces in the PHOENIX project to create an Open Innovation Test Bed for nano-pharmaceuticals. PHOENIX is a research project funded by EU’s Horizon2020 research programme and it aims at providing services to the market for the development, testing, safety assessment, GMP production and commercialization of nano-pharmaceuticals.

PHOENIX is coordinated by the Luxemburg Institute of Science and Technology (Dr. Tommaso Serchi) and supported by MyBiotech for the Scientific Coordination (Dr. Nazende Günday-Türeli). The projects official kick off will be during the second half of March 2021 in the format of a 2 days virtual meeting. PHOENIX has a duration of 48 months (1st March 2021 – 28th February 2025), a total budget of €14.450 Million Euros with a Requested EU contribution of 11.1 Million Euros.

Nano-pharmaceuticals have the potential to drive the scientific and technological uplift, offering great clinical and socioeconomic benefits to the society in general, industry and key stakeholders and patients. Nevertheless, affordable and advanced testing, manufacturing facilities and services for novel nano-pharmaceuticals are main prerequisites for successful implementation of these advances to further enhance the growth and innovation capacity. The establishment of current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) in nano-pharmaceutical production at large scale is the key step to transfer successfully the nano-pharmaceuticals from bench to bedside (from lab to industrial scale). Due to the lack of resources to implement GMP manufacturing at-site, the upscaling and production of innovative nano-pharmaceuticals is still challenging to main players of EU nanomedicine market, start-ups and SMEs. To allow successful implementation of the nano-pharmaceuticals in the nanomedicine field, there is an urgent need to establish science- and regulatory-based Open Innovation Test Bed (OITB). PHOENIX aims to enable the seamless, timely and cost-friendly transfer of nano-pharmaceuticals from lab bench to clinical trials by providing the necessary advanced, affordable and easily accessible PHOENIX -OITB. PHOENIX -OITB will offer a consolidated network of facilities, technologies, services and expertise for all the technology transfer aspects from characterization, testing, verification up to scale up, GMP compliant manufacturing and regulatory guidance. PHOENIX-OITB will develop and establish new facilities and upgrade existing ones to make them available to SMEs, starts-up and research laboratories for scale-up, GMP production and testing of nano-pharmaceuticals. The services and expertise provided by the OITB will include production and characterization under GMP conditions, safety evaluation, regulatory compliance and commercialisation boost.

The 11 partners that form the PHOENIX consortium are:
  • Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST – RTO from Luxembourg) – Project coordinator;
  • MyBiotech (MyB – SME from Germany) – Project Scientific Coordinator;
  • Nanomol Technologies SL (NT – SME from Spain);
  • LeanBio SL (LB – SME from Spain);
  • BioNanoNet Forschungsgesellschaft mbH (BNN – RTO from Austria);
  • Agencia Estatal Consejo Superior Deinvestigaciones Científicas (CSIC-ZAR/CSIC-BCN – RTO from Spain);
  • Institute for Medical Research and Occupational Health (IMROH – RTO from Croatia);
  • Research Center Pharmaceutical Engineering GmbH (RCPE – RTO from Austria);
  • Cenya Imaging B.V. (Cenya – SME from The Netherlands);
  • Topas Therapeutics GmbH (TT – Industry from Germany);
  • Grace Bio SL (GB – SME from Spain).
Project Details
  • Project No: 953110
  • Start Date: 01/03/2021
  • End Date: 02/28/2025
  • Project Duration: 48 months
  • More information on PHOENIX can be found on the Horizon 2020 website.
  • For additional information please contact the Project Coordinator at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology or the Scientific Coordinator at MyBiotech.:
  • Contact point LIST: Dr. Tommaso Serchi, email: tommaso.serchi@list.lu,
  • Contact point MyBiotech: Dr. Nazende Günday-Türeli, email: n.guenday-tuereli@mybiotech.de.