The EIC investment was made through its Accelerator Fund, designed to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs), in particular start-ups and spin-out companies, to develop and scale “game-changing” innovations. This last call attracted almost 500 applications across Europe, in all industry sectors. From this pool, 153 were invited to an online interview with the EIC and 32 of them were awarded a grant. Of these, 17 received an equity commitment as well as a grant. Smart Immune was the only French company to receive an equity commitment and a grant.

The EIC Accelerator €2.5 million grant will support Smart Immune’s ongoing ProTcell Phase I/II clinical trials. The equity investment commitment of up to €15 million will be used for CAR T-cell application development of the ProTcell platform and bioproduction scale-up.

Karine Rossignol, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Smart Immune, said: “We are thrilled our technology has been recognized by the European Innovation Council as a potential game-changer in the way in which life-threatening cancers and infection are treated. This investment will support the ongoing clinical trials in Europe and the US for our ProTcell therapy platform in acute leukemia and inherited immune diseases. Our goal is to change survival outcomes for patients by fully and rapidly re-arming their immune systems.”