Gironde company TreeFrog raises 64 million euros for its research on stem cells

His name may not mean anything to you, yet TreeFrog is experiencing stratospheric growth after only three years of existence. The company located in Pessac, in Gironde, has just raised 64 million euros with the support of Bpifrance and international investors. This represents ten times the sum that the start-up had managed to raise when it started, two and a half years ago.

Stay at the forefront of cell therapy research

TreeFrog is a start-up of biotechnology, that is to say, it uses high technology in its research on stem cells. Its objective is to manage to produce industrial quantities and in record time, with a view to using them for therapies. Stem cells have the ability to transform into any organ cell (liver, brain, heart cell) and repair diseased organs. What for example to try to treat degenerative diseases, heart, or immune pathologies.

Treefrog is ahead in the field, with a record of stem cells produced set at the start of the year: she made 15 billion in a small 10-liter container … which would be equivalent to treating around 1,000 patients. However, for the moment, we are still only experimenting on animals. The 64 million euros therefore represent a key step, “acceleration“for the president of TreeFrog, Frédéric Desdouits, because they will help advance the research stages, in particular with experiments on humans.

TreeFrog remains in Pessac and expands

After months spent convincing investors, Frédéric Desdouits looks at the coming months with ambition, especially in recruitment : “we want to go from around fifty to around a hundred employees at our Pessac site, mainly researchers. We are also going to create two subsidiaries in the United States and in Japan, but our heart remains in Gironde, because we are very supported here. “ The excellent level of French researchers, support for innovation via the research tax credit, as well as the protection of intellectual protection are just as many “ingredients“which also explain the choice to stay in Pessac.

The Gironde company is giving itself three years for the first experiments in Parkinson’s disease … and as things are going slowly in the pharmaceutical industry, the commercialization of the treatment will not arrive before 2030. These 64 million euros, it is above all a great boost for the company, especially since it operates in a ultra-competitive environment where Europe is last.

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