Allogen Biotech will receive €50k from fund
By Maurice Garvey
TALLAGHT firm Allogen Biotech are included amongst the latest round of SME recipients, under an EU scientific research fund.
The Synergy Centre-based biotech developer will receive €50,000 Phase 1 funding under the Horizon 2020 SME Instrument, towards the development of their skin-allergy diagnostics patch Arm-B.
Ben Teeling CEO and co-founder of Allogen Biotech, said Phase 1 of the Horizon fund is primarily used by SME’s towards drafting a feasibility study for their concept, in order to move it on to the next stage.
“It (Arm-B) is a non-invasive skin-allergy diagnostics patch, that can be put on in a short space of time, easy to apply,” said Teeling.
Allogen Biotech was established in 2011 by biomedical engineers Teeling and Derek Graydon.
Their focus is on developing portable food contamination and allergen-testing devices, to enable food manufacturers and processors bypass time consuming and expensive lab testing.
Whilst Teeling says their background is in “developing food allergies”, they also conduct research and work in responding to “different types of allergies.”
“One of those is in gluten, lactose and shellfish, another area is in the area of pollens, dusters and household bacterias. Another one we are playing with is in the area of cosmetics and pharmaceutical.”
In 2016, Allogen received €50,000 under the Horizon fund, towards the development of a fast-acting consumer test to detect gluten and other contaminants in food.
Although that did not lead to the SME getting picked to move onto Phase 2, Teeling says they filed intellectual property rights for the concept and are continuing their work on this.
Operating out of the Synergy Centre, provides the SME with an incubation base, to operate organically on their projects in the constantly evolving biotech sector.
Since the launch of the Horizon fund in 2014, up to 65 Irish SMEs have been granted Phase 1 funding.
Under Phase 2, successful projects can receive anywhere from €0.5 to €2.5 million, to finance innovation activities such as demonstration, testing, piloting and scaling up.
