Smart Immune is selected for the first cohort of the French Tech Health20 program
This unique program has selected 20 French start-ups that offer disruptive healthcare innovations
PARIS, France, 27 March, 2023 – Smart Immune SAS, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing ProTcell, a thymus-empowered T-cell therapy platform to fully and rapidly re-arm the immune system, announced today that it has been selected for the new French Tech Health20 program, initiated this year.
The French Tech Health20 program has been set up by Mission French Tech as part of its strategy to support French startups developing disruptive innovations to tackle major societal health issues. This is in line with the government's Health Innovation 2030 plan and in partnership with the Agence de l'Innovation en Santé (AIS) as part of its mission to support health technology.
Smart Immune’s patented ProTcell technology is in the Biotherapies and the Bioproduction of Innovative Therapies fields mentioned by the Health Innovation 2030 plan.
The selection criteria for the 2023 cohort were demanding, with an independent selecting the winners from almost 400 health companies. The 20 winners are developing innovations with significant differentiation compared to existing solutions and have the potential for large-scale deployment.
Rearming the immune system in 100 days rather than the 18 months in normal physiology
Smart Immune has developed a unique technology to grow a new type of white blood cell ex vivo – T-cell progenitors. This therapeutic innovation is designed to expedite T-cell reconstitution for patients affected by severe immune failure, returning to them the capacity to fight tumors and infections. By reducing the period of vulnerability of patients treated with allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation from 18 months to 100 days, Smart immune aims to improve overall survival for thousands of patients.
While the body of a normal individual takes nearly 15 months to transform blood stem cells into progenitors of T-cells (white blood cells), Smart Immune’s technology, through its a patented ex vivo lymphoid niche cell culture process, accelerates this natural process of differentiation and maturation to 7 days. Once administered to the patient, these ProTcells migrate into the thymus and complete their maturation in 3 months to restore the full capacity of the patient's immune system.
These cells form the basis of ProTcell, a universal cell therapy platform developed by Smart Immune to rearm a patient’s failed immune system to fight cancer and infection, and pave the way for innovative medicine for all.
Karine Rossignol, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Smart Immune: "We are happy to be a winner of this first cohort of the Health20 program. This selection is a recognition of the disruptive nature of our technology in the field of cancer and infectious diseases. Since 2014, Mission French Tech has demonstrated its ability to raise the voice of innovative start-ups in France. Winning here will help us to gain visibility and credibility on the international scene as well as to advocate for a stronger commitment from public authorities to support, in France, the cell and gene therapy sector, and to invest in bioproduction, for the benefit of patients."
About the Health20 program
Health20 is a support program dedicated to start-ups in the health sector. After Green20, Agri20 and DeepNum20, this is the 4th program launched by the French Tech Mission within the framework of its strategy of supporting start-ups offering disruptive innovations for the key challenges facing society. In line with the Health Innovation 2030 governmental plan, it will help the selected start-ups to develop their innovations in the fields of digital health, infectious and emerging diseases, biotherapies and the bioproduction of innovative therapies, biomedicines and innovative medical devices in France.
About the Mission French Tech
The Mission French Tech is the French administration responsible for helping the ecosystem of French start-ups form and flourish, in France and abroad. Part of the Directorate General for Enterprise within the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, the Mission coordinates and oversees the French Tech ecosystem with its network of 16 Capitals and 99 Communities, in France and abroad. It also supports start-ups by making it easier for them to interact with the administration via a network of more than 60 French Tech contacts. The Mission French Tech supports the most mature start-ups through the French Tech Next40/120 programme, as well as start-ups operating in sectors identified as strategic as part of the France 2030 plan with its first sector dedicated programmes: Green20, Agri20, Health20 and DeepNum20. Finally, through the French Tech Tremplin program, the French Tech Mission enables people without an entrepreneurial background to create their own start-up anywhere in France.
About Smart Immune
Smart Immune is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing ProTcell a thymus-empowered T-cell therapy platform to fully and rapidly re-arm the immune system, enabling next-generation allogeneic T-cell therapies for all. The company was founded in 2017 to help patients with life-threatening diseases such as high-risk blood cancers and primary immunodeficiencies.
Smart Immune’s ProTcell platform, which is already in Phase I/II clinical trials, enables the recovery of a complete immune repertoire in patients fighting cancer and infection. ProTcell introduces potent, allogeneic T-cell progenitors which are then differentiated by the thymus into fully functional T-cells.
Smart Immune’s partners include Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and Greater Paris University Hospitals (AP-HP). The company is located at Paris Biotech Santé, 29 rue du Faubourg St Jacques, France.
Media contact:
Consilium Strategic Communications
smartimmune@consilium-comms.com
