BEAT Therapeutics wins Young Entrepreneur Award 2023
BEAT Therapeutics wins Young Entrepreneur Award 2023
The company incubated at UPTEC and specialized in the development of innovative therapies for cancer was distinguished by ANJE
There are, in total, 25,000 euros that go straight into BEAT Therapeutics’ “pocket”. The startup incubated at UPTEC was this year’s big winner of the Young Entrepreneur Award, awarded by the National Association of Young Entrepreneurs.
“It was very gratifying to receive this distinction from ANJE, an association that has greatly contributed to the promotion of entrepreneurship in Portugal, specifically young entrepreneurship”, highlights Ângela Carvalho, co-founder of BEAT Therapeutics and former researcher at the Institute of Research and Innovation in Health at the U.Porto (i3S).
For the company, which has the fight against cancer as its mission, this distinction demonstrates confidence that “reinforces motivation and strengthens the company’s ongoing efforts to develop innovative cancer therapies”.
BEAT Therapeutics focuses on oncological treatments, namely aggressive ovarian, pancreatic, triple-negative breast and castration-resistant prostate cancers. The team of five researchers from the U.Porto discovered and successfully tested an innovative compound due to its origins and effects.
The team has shown promising results throughout the tests and may be up to four times more effective than chemotherapy in reducing tumours. The goal is for this compound to become the treatment of excellence for aggressive cancers and, thus, a new hope for the more than 1.7 million patients diagnosed every year with cancers of this type.
This discovery has earned the team behind BEAT Therapeutics several distinctions. These include, for example, first place in iUP25k – the University of Porto’s business ideas competition and second place in BIP Acceleration – both initiatives organized by U.Porto Inovação with the support of the UI-CAN project. They were also awarded by EIT Health InnoStars 2023, having won second place.
The team behind the innovative project is made up of researchers Lucília Saraiva and Ana Catarina Matos (FFUP and REQUIMTE), Ângela Carvalho, Hugo Prazeres and José Luís Costa (i3s), Maria José Umbelino Ferreira (FFUL) and Silva Mulhovo, from the Pedagogical University of Mozambique, in a fruitful collaboration between several institutions. The project is, therefore, an effective option in cases where patients have no therapeutic alternative other than conventional chemotherapy.
“We are currently in the pre-clinical phase, and the prize will be applied to continuing the preparation of the therapeutic, to carry out the mandatory regulatory pathway and the first clinical trials in three years”, concludes Ângela Carvalho.
January 26, 2024