company spotlight

Many biotech companies are formed out of early research conducted in universities. This is the reason for the increasing number of technology transfer offices.  

Promethera Biosciences which focuses on liver disease, is one such company. Founded in 2009, it was the brainchild of Professor Etienne Sokal, pediatric hepatologist at Cliniques Universitaires St Luc and the Université Catholique de Louvain Technology Transfer Office.

It drew on the longstanding, pioneering work in paediatric liver transplantation at Cliniques St Luc, the first European hepatocyte transplantation program and the discovery in 2005 by Professor Sokal and Mustapha Najimi of a unique liver-derived mesenchymal stem cell, obtained from…