Oss – 6 June 2012 – Netherlands Translational Research Center B.V. (NTRC) starts operations at the Life Sciences Park Oss, after successful closing its first round of financing. With the financial support of the Brabant Life Sciences Seed Fund (BLSF) and the Spin-Off Fund Brabant (SOFB) NTRC will expand its portfolio of innovative drug discovery projects and establish a services business on the profiling of small molecule drug candidates in cell-based assays.

NTRC was founded by Dr. Guido Zaman and Dr. Rogier Buijsman in June 2011. Both are former employees of MSD/Organon and are now Head of Biology and Head of Chemistry of NTRC.

NTRC bridges the innovation gap by performing the early phases of small molecule drug discovery in close collaboration with academic centers of excellence in the Netherlands. In a collaboration with the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam (NKI) and the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU) NTRC is investigating a novel concept of combination cancer chemotherapy with the aim to decrease side-effects of existing therapies. This project is performed within the framework of Top Institute Pharma, an initiative of the Dutch Ministry of Education, to stimulate the public – private partnerships.

NTRC develops series of small molecule drug candidates, based on new and innovative biological concepts from academia. NTRC will seek for out-licensing of these drug candidates. In order to build up NTRC’s services business, NTRC has been granted a subsidy from the Innovation Office (Agentschap NL) of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Agriculture and Innovation (ELI) to develop an assay platform for kinase and cancer drug discovery.

Brabant Life Sciences Seed Fund (BLSF) is initiative of the WesterToren Innovation Center (WTIc), a private incubator in ‘s Hertogenbosch. Partners of the Fund are the Bossche Investerings Maatschappij (BIM), Biox Biosciences, the Brabantse OntwikkelingsMaatschappij (BOM), Rabobank ‘s Hertogenbosch e.o., and the Zuidelijke Land- en Tuinbouw Organisatie (ZLTO).

Spin-Off Fund Brabant: The participation of the BOM has been financed by the Spin-off Fund. This fund supports innovative and knowledge-intensive starters and spin-offs.