Bluephage closes its first round of capital increase
Bluephage, a spin-off of the University of Barcelona, has just closed its first round of capital increase for €180,000. The twelve new partners will join the founders of Bluephage: the researchers from the University of Barcelona Joan Jofre, Francisco Lucena, and Anicet Blanch; the executive director, Enric Queralt, and the University of Barcelona through the CIC-UB. The family office Sánchez Lafuente, former owners of Gelos Laboratories—the manufacturers of Gelocatil—and Jordi Oliver-Rodés, General Manager of the Dr. Oliver-Rodés Laboratory stand out among these new partners. The Bosch i Gimpera Foundation, the UB office for knowledge transfer, has also become a shareholder by turning the Valorisation Fund grant of the Fund for the Promotion of Innovation (F2i) programme into shares.
This capital increase will finance the industrial scale-up of production of the company’s first product, as well as its validation and certification. The spin-off is currently under development, and works towards the commercialization of its first product in the US market in 2018, coinciding with the entry into force of new legislation regulating the measure of viral contamination in bathing waters
Bluephage works on the detection of bacteriophages, viral indicators that allow the monitoring of the microbiological quality of water, food products, and biosolids. The product is based on a technology developed by the Research Group on Health Related Water Microbiology (MARS) of the University of Barcelona. This patented technology can reduce the analysis time, which can usually take over 48 hours, to only three hours.
This project is supported by VALUNI ACCIÓ (VALUNI16-10058).
