Swiss-Swedish Eurostars project to tackle drug resistant infections

Antimicrobial resistance is a major sanitary concern due to infections caused by resistant micro-organisms. Standard treatment often fails, resulting in prolonged illness and greater risk of death.

BioVersys, a spinoff company from ETH Zurich, and Swedish firm SARomics have combined their expertise to tackle antimicrobial resistance in an international project supported by Eurostars. Co-funded by 33 countries and the European Commission, Eurostars is a European programme specifically dedicated to SMEs specialising in high-tech and research, also referred to as ‘RD-intensive SMEs’.

The companies collaborated in the frame of the Eurostars SARTRIC project, which aims to find a way of blocking the activation of resistance genes so that drugs already on the market will work again on microbes that had become resilient to treatment. SARomics, located in the area known as Medicon Valley in Denmark and Sweden, and BioVersys will pool their resources to turn initial hit molecules into leads for preclinical testing.

Marcel Tigges, chief science officer at BioVersys, said: “It is a great pleasure to see the synergies between our two companies bearing fruit in an international collaboration with the support and funding of Eurostars.”