Cancer company Akuru Pharma awarded funding

Akuru Pharma has been granted a total of SEK 600,000 from the Sten K Johnson Foundation and from Vinnova’s closed call for SME Instruments runner-up companies. The majority of this sum comes from Vinnova, which handles the call for proposals for the European Commission's Horizon2020 SME instrument.

This funding will be used in part to advance the company’s plan to develop diagnostic methods and treatments for clear cell renal cancer, and in part for continued commercial development. The company has an ongoing clinical phase 2 study on diagnostic methods for clear cell renal cancer.

The company received a seal of excellence in conjunction with the Vinnova funding. Akuru Pharma also plans to apply for funding from Horizon2020 SME Instrument to finance the subsequent steps in the development process.

"We are pleased and proud of this funding, which will enable us to proceed with our ‘proof of concept’ in clinical trials, and we can also continue working on our development. This is an acknowledgement that our work is important and on the right track,” says Håkan Axelson, founder and Chairman of the Board of Akuru Pharma.

Akuru Pharma is a company at SmiLe Incubator, that helps entrepreneurs within life science to commercialize their business ideas and is located in Medicon Village in Lund. www.smileincubator.life

Facts about Akuru Pharma: Akuru Pharma AB is a biomedical company focused on developing novel diagnostic and treatment modalities for kidney cancer based on a distinctive set of tumor-specific transporter proteins. Transporter proteins provides a unique opportunity to deliver active agents into tumor cells for therapy, additionally they can be used as cell surface markers for diagnostic purposes. www.akurupharma.com

For more information, contact: Håkan Axelsson, cofounder and chairman of the board. 
hakan.axelson@akurupharma.com