bm|t beteili­gungs­man­age­ment thürin­gen (bm|t), TGFS Tech­nolo­giegrün­der­fonds Sach­sen, pri­vate investors and the founder are invest­ing a seven-fig­ure sum in BION­CaRT GmbH (for­merly Bio­Planta GmbH) in a seed financ­ing round. The aim is to con­duct a phase I/IIa clin­i­cal trial for the mar­ket approval of a human stem cell ther­a­peu­tic for the treat­ment of focal car­ti­lage dam­age to the knee joint. 

bm‑t beteili­gungs­man­age­ment thürin­gen GmbH and TGFS Tech­nolo­giegrün­der­fonds Sach­sen, together with pri­vate investors and the founder, have invested a seven-fig­ure sum in the Saxon-Thuringian life sci­ence com­pany Bio­Planta as part of seed financ­ing. Hav­ing reached this impor­tant mile­stone, the com­pany has now changed its name to BION­CaRT GmbH. BION­CaRT has devel­oped the prod­uct Mesem­Cart, an allo­geneic cell ther­apy (ATMP) that uses stem cells from umbil­i­cal cord tis­sue to treat acute or chronic car­ti­lage dam­age in the knee joint.

With the new fund­ing, BION­CaRT plans to con­duct the clin­i­cal trial of the first allo­geneic cell ther­apy based on human mes­enchy­mal stro­mal cells in Europe for the described indi­ca­tion and to pre­pare the mar­ket launch of the prod­uct in Ger­many and Europe.

“Our vision is to be able to offer all patients an imme­di­ate and cost-effec­tive stem cell ther­a­peu­tic for car­ti­lage regen­er­a­tion, ini­tially in the knee and then also in other joints and for the treat­ment of osteoarthri­tis. I am par­tic­u­larly pleased that we have been able to attract a com­pe­tent and very well-con­nected pool of investors who will cer­tainly accom­pany us on our path in the long term,” com­ments Bio­Planta founder Dr. André Gerth on the cur­rent development.
“With our new name BION­CaRT, we want to make our exper­tise in the field of car­ti­lage ther­apy clearly visible.”

Over the next three years, clin­i­cal tri­als (phase I/IIa) will be con­ducted to prove the safety of the ATMP and con­firm the results from the proof of con­cept.
In par­tic­u­lar, the focus will be on sig­nif­i­cantly reduc­ing pain and improv­ing patients’ qual­ity of life. Fur­ther treat­ment goals are the com­plete inte­gra­tion of the cell-laden matrix and the for­ma­tion of new hya­line car­ti­lage. BION­CaRT is coop­er­at­ing with the Fraun­hofer Insti­tute for Cell Ther­apy and Immunol­ogy in Leipzig and the Uni­ver­sity Cen­ter for Orthopaedics, Trauma and Plas­tic Surgery at TU Dres­den and the Coor­di­na­tion Cen­ter for Clin­i­cal Stud­ies at TU Dres­den. As soon as the first results of the phase I/IIa study are avail­able, national approval of Mesem­Cart will be applied for. The mar­ket launch of the ther­a­peu­tic agent in Ger­many is sched­uled to begin in 2027. Com­mer­cial­iza­tion of the prod­uct through­out Europe will begin after com­ple­tion of the Phase III clin­i­cal trial and Euro­pean mar­ket approval in 2030.

“Mesem­Cart has the poten­tial to rev­o­lu­tion­ize regen­er­a­tive med­i­cine in the treat­ment of car­ti­lage dam­age and osteoarthri­tis and we are proud to be a part­ner in this devel­op­ment with our invest­ment in BION­CaRT,” empha­sizes Katja Butz­mann, Senior Invest­ment Man­ager at bm|t. The invest­ment in BION­CaRT GmbH under­lines the TGFS strat­egy of pro­mot­ing tech­nol­ogy-ori­ented com­pa­nies in Sax­ony that aim to gen­er­ate social added value with their solu­tions in addi­tion to finan­cial gains. Oliver Latz, Senior Invest­ment Man­ager of TGFS: “We are con­vinced that the planned clin­i­cal trial will lay the foun­da­tion for a suc­cess­ful mar­ket launch and thus make a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to improv­ing the qual­ity of life of patients. With our invest­ment, we are not only sup­port­ing a promis­ing com­pany, but also the biotech­nol­ogy loca­tion of Sax­ony as a whole.”

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bm‑t beteili­gungs­man­age­ment thürin­gen GmbH based in Erfurt, is a sub­sidiary of Thüringer Auf­baubank and the lead­ing address for ven­ture cap­i­tal and risk cap­i­tal financ­ing in Thuringia. bm|t cur­rently man­ages twelve funds with a total vol­ume of around EUR 445 mil­lion, which invest in inno­v­a­tive com­pa­nies in almost all sec­tors and in all phases of cor­po­rate devel­op­ment — both in the start-up and growth phases — or in com­pany suc­ces­sion situations.

TGFS Tech­nolo­giegrün­der­fonds Sach­sen pro­vides tech­nol­ogy-ori­ented founders with equity cap­i­tal for the seed and start-up phase. The fund was first launched in 2008 by the Free State of Sax­ony (includ­ing ERDF fund­ing) and Saxon finan­cial insti­tu­tions and has since sup­ported over 100 start-ups. In 2023, the TGFS started its third fund gen­er­a­tion. The TGFS focuses on young, inno­v­a­tive, tech­nol­ogy-ori­ented com­pa­nies from the ITC, semi­con­duc­tor and microsys­tems tech­nol­ogy, med­ical tech­nol­ogy, life sci­ence, envi­ron­men­tal and energy tech­nol­ogy and new media sec­tors that are based or have their place of busi­ness in Saxony.

BION­CaRT GmbH emerged from Bio­Planta GmbH, which has been devel­op­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing cell ther­apy prod­ucts from mes­enchy­mal stro­mal cells for clin­i­cal appli­ca­tion in humans and con­duct­ing pre­clin­i­cal stud­ies for sev­eral years. As a research-based phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pany, BION­CaRT is involved in the trans­la­tion of bio­med­ical drugs for clin­i­cal appli­ca­tion in humans, in par­tic­u­lar for the treat­ment of orthopaedic dis­eases. The focus here is on allo­geneic ther­apy con­cepts (use of cells from other patients).