Their cutting-edge technologies provide their customers with solutions to discover and develop innovative products in Human Healthcare
The Navarran firm Ikan Biotech was created in 2016 after Roberto Díez-Martínez, Doctor of Molecular Biology, Biochemistry and Biomedicine, was the first to reproduce a human infectious disease - a pneumonia - in a zebrafish. Its general director, embarked on this project with Rubén Díez Punzano (CEO), MBA and European Financial Advisor certified by Afi, who was subsequently joined by Iranzu Lamberto Pérez, Doctor in Cellular and Molecular Biology, with the firm intention of strengthening the area of Cancer research. A team of highly qualified young professionals completes the staff. "The trials in zebrafish significantly reduce the cost and if we manage to automate and standardize the processes, the savings would be much greater, something very important for both patients and public health services," they explain from the direction.
The company works for the public and private sector. Among its clients, the most prominent names are Nilsa, Mancomunidad de la Comarca de Pamplona, ??CSIC, CIMA, Navarrabiomed and the functional food company Research Diets, among others.
Ikan has the necessary material to offer its customers the best solutions through the latest equipment, providing the highest quality to its customers. They have, for example, the Cytation 5 tool (Cell Imagine multimode reader) and the AKTA Start system, which adapts to the needs of protein purification, from basic level systems to advanced automated systems.
Ikan Biotech has developed several innovative models of zebrafish tumor that help reduce the cost of the drug discovery phase. This is an efficient tumor model system to design and test the efficacy of potential drugs for cancer treatment.
The Zebraoncofish project has been gestated and managed by Ikan Biotech that supported its work in trials with zebrafish knowing that they considerably reduce the cost and speed the results. In 2017, the company introduced “SME H2020” that finances more than two million euros in research to speed up cancer treatments over the next two years.
The brand's initiative is to transplant a patient's tumor cells to embryonic specimens of zebrafish, called avatar. “The simulation of the patient’s cancer allows to personalize the treatment and gain time, something very important working with this pathology. A series of patterns are created, which allow us to feed databases with lots of information. This helps both people who have donated their cells and future patients”, explains Dr. Iranzu Lambert.
Thanks to the help received, Ikan Biotech expanded its workforce with more specialists in both cancer and zebrafish. It has also acquired fungible material and resources, while it has paid for the certifications that validate the studies resulting from the Zebraoncofish project.
The firm currently dedicates its efforts to colon cancer. The next objective is to strengthen the project to integrate it into different hospital centers and also internationally.
