Our Mission anchor
Our Mission
innoVitro is a biotech company with core competence in the measurement of cellular forces, in particular of stem cell derived cardiomyocytes.
Cardiovascular diseases are the most common cause of death in the western world. Although mortality is steadily decreasing due to the continuous improvement of emergency medical care, late effects lead to a loss of life quality and high follow-up costs for the health care system. These late effects can be treated by medications with a strength-enhancing effect, which can significantly improve the quality of life of those affected. In the development and characterization of these drugs, the pharmaceutical industry has been dependent on animal experiments, which not only cost a great deal of money but also raise ethical concerns among public opinion.
innoVitro is a preclinical CRO (Contract Research Organisation) providing an in vitro cardiac muscle service based on the FLEXcyte technology and human cardiac muscle cells of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) derived origin.
The service is intended to be an alternative to animal experiments which will enable the qualitative and quantitative determination of substance effects on the contractility of myocardial cells. By using human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, common issues regarding the translatability of pharmacological results from animal models to human physiology are avoided already in the preclinical phase of drug development and improve cardiac risk assessment.
Our Team anchor
Our Team
Matthias Goßmann PhD
Chief Executive Officer
Matthias holds a degree in biotechnology and a doctorate in chemistry. Since 2008, he has been working on the development of the CellDrum technology, a predecessor of the FLEXcyte technology, mainly used for academic purposes. As part of his doctoral thesis, the CellDrum was further developed into an industrial demonstrator. After gaining 4 years of experience as a scientist in the stem cell industry (Axiogenesis AG), he turned to the field of business development as one of the two founders of innoVitro GmbH.
Peter Linder MSc
Chief Technology Officer
Peter has already contributed to the first developmental steps of the CellDrum technology in his diploma thesis in the field of biomedical technology. His further career includes a Master of Science in cooperation with the University Hospital of Cologne as well as project work in the field of aerospace technology. Besides his current doctorate on III. Physical Institute B at RWTH Aachen University, he is responsible at innoVitro GmbH for hardware and software development as well as laboratory management.
Bettina Lickiss PhD
Scientific Communications & Business Development Manager
Since 2019, Bettina is member of the innoVitro team and responsible for scientific communications and business development. Bettina holds a doctorate degree in neurobiology and gained 5 years of experience in the stem cell biotech industry and field of human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes before working for innoVitro GmbH.
Jan Hunker MSc
Development Engineer & Scientific Assistant
Since 2021, Jan is the part of the innoVitro team and supports the lab and IT projects for hardware and software development. He successfully graduated as Master of Science (M.Sc.) at the University of Applied Sciences Aachen in the field of biomedical engineering and is specialized in machine learning.
Our Partners anchor
Our Partners
Nanion Technologies is one of the world’s leading providers of cell-based assays, from automated patch clamp to extracellular recording techniques. The decision to collaborate was made in 2018 in order to develop a 96 well screening system to measure and analyse cardiac contractility based on the “CellDrum” technology. The CellDrum was originally co-developed by Dr. Matthias Gossmann and Peter Linder at the Biophysical Laboratory of Biomedical Engineering of the University of Applied Science Aachen.
The outcome of this partnership is the FLEXcyte 96, an add-on system for the CardioExcyte 96, that works as a bench top incubation system to be independent from a typical incubator. A unique data handling software package comes along with the FLEXcte 96 to ensure maximum outcome of the acquired data. Nanion Technologies is responsible for the production and distribution of the FLEXcyte 96 device in close cooperation with innoVitro. FLX-96 plates production and distribution as well as services carried out with the FLEXcyte 96 system are performed by innoVitro.
innoVitro and Nanion Technologies complement each other by permanent support regarding each other’s FLEXcyte related research & development as well as customer support.
Membership anchor
Membership
The team of innoVitro is a member of the HESI Cardiac Safety Technical Committee, a consortium of pharmaceutical companies, technology providers, regulatory authorities and universities where new technologies are evaluated.
The HESI Commitee’s mission is to improve public health by reducing unexpected cardiovascular-related side effects from drugs or chemicals by developing innovative approaches to support early detection and prediction of cardiovascular toxicology and pathobiology.
innoVitro is a founding member of the Botanical Safety Consortium (BSC).
The BSC is a forum for scientists from consumer health groups, academia, industry, non-profits, and government (collectively, the “Members”) to generate a scientifically based integration of existing safety data and toxicology tools to evaluate botanical safety. BSC Members will work collaboratively on a variety of issues, including chemical characterization of complex botanical products and identification of fit-for-purpose assays for evaluating risks such as genotoxicity, hepatotoxicity, developmental and reproductive toxicity, cardiotoxicity, and systems toxicity. Based on this research, the BSC will provide recommendations to enhance the botanical safety toolkit and bring clarity to botanical dietary ingredient assessments for manufacturers and regulators.
