Lighthouse Biotech, an Italian biotech startup born as a spin-off of Udine University with the support of Aviano Oncology Centre and Nijmegendel Stichting KatholiekeUniversiteit, aims to raise 2 – 3 million euros. The figure includes the target for an equity crowdfunding campaign on CrowdFundMe for fetching 0.8 -1.5 million on the ground of a 9 million pre-money value. Fabio Del Ben and Matteo Turetta founded Lighthouse in 2019. Gianluigi Meneghini (ceo) and Villi Scalzotto joined the company later after years of experience in start-ups.
Del Ben graduated in Medicine and clinical pathology and clinical biochemistry at Udine University and earned a PhD in nanotechnology at Trieste Graduate School of Nanotechnology. Furthermore, he holds a Master in Complex Actions from SISSA and a diploma in software writing from Milan National Instruments. Turetta is a managing physician for clinical pathology and microbiology at Aviano Oncology Center. He also received a Master in Complex Actions from SISSA. Meneghini graduated in electronic engineering with a focus on applied optics. Scalzotto has a degree in subnuclear physics with a specialisation in astroparticle physics.
Click above to review the BeBeez Web Café of June 26
about Biotech Investments opportunities in Italy. The Lighthouse Biotech case
Del Ben joined the Caffè di BeBeez Web of 26 June, Thursday (watch the video here and read here the follow-up article) and said: “Today’s status of Lighthouse is the result of ten years of work. The first discovery stemmed from a strong clinical need, which is to provide an answer to oncological monitoring, which today is mainly done through imaging, i.e. CT and PET scans, and through surgical biopsies. These tools leave significant time gaps for monitoring. Our co-founder wanted to respond to this strong clinical need for real-time diagnostics of the evolution of the disease in relation to the progress of cancer therapy. We directed our efforts in the field of liquid biopsy, i.e. trying to find tumour elements in the peripheral blood, thus downstream of a simple blood sample. But tumour material is very rare in blood and therefore very difficult to find, so we needed a technological innovation. We invented an approach that we immediately patented, recognising its industrial potential. It is as if other technologies were looking at the cells as they appear on the outside. However, tumour cells change frequently, so it’s as if they change their clothes all the time and it’s difficult to tell if they are cancerous or not from how they appear. We instead go to see how they function, i.e. what they eat and what they produce, which always remains the same, even if the external appearance changes. In this way we can find most of the cancer cells in the circulation. Without even touching them with the analysis, so that was and still is the competitive advantage of our technology”.
The team therefore developed a proprietary technology based on microfluidics and metabolic analysis of circulating tumour cells (CTCs), which allows these cells to be detected in the blood in a highly sensitive manner and without damaging them. Mr. Del ben added: “To date, four instruments are already operational in centres of excellence in Italy, engaged in studies on prostate, breast and lung cancer and even paediatric sarcomas. The current goal is to obtain independent validations, optimise the user interface, expand the patent portfolio and prepare for industrial scale-up. In a conservative scenario, we can raise 2 million while in the best case we would attract 3 million, with a crowdfunding component of 0.8 – 1.5 million. This money will support Lighthouse current research lines and optimise the technology because these labs act as beta testers: using the technology first gives us feedback on what works better or worse. Then we will expand the patent portfolio and prepare ourselves to the industrial production of our device”.
