A dazzling start of 2026: New Investment for Erasmus MC spin-off, Venture Challenge Progress and AUTM Insights
Pepper Therapeutics Raises €350,000 from UNIIQ to Advance Pancreatic Cancer Treatment
Pepper Therapeutics B.V., a venture co founded by Orfenix together with Amsterdam UMC (Amsterdam Academic Ventures), Erasmus MC, Support Casper and RARE NL, has secured a €350,000 investment from UNIIQ – Finance for the Future, the early stage fund of InnovationQuarter supporting groundbreaking innovations in life sciences and technology.
The funding will accelerate the development of Phenformin as a potential new treatment for pancreatic cancer, one of the most aggressive and deadly cancer types worldwide.
Founded in December 2025, Pepper Therapeutics has now raised a total of €1.2 million to date. The company’s mission is clear: bringing promising scientific discoveries from Dutch academic research closer to patients.
With this new investment, Pepper Therapeutics is taking important steps toward clinical development and continues to welcome new partners to join the current financing round.
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TTO boosts its spin-off portfolio as new projects HomeRun and ViroGenesis join the Venture Challenge Program
Two Erasmus MC TTO supported projects — HomeRun and ViroGenesis — participated in the LifeSciences@Work Venture Challenge—gaining valuable insights into business modelling, value proposition development, and early stage venture strategy.
Both teams benefited from intensive feedback from professional coaches and industry experts, helping them to refine their focus and strengthen the next steps toward potential spin off creation.
The #HomeRun team (Dirk Grünhagen, Teun Schurink, Elise van Driel and Thom Joosten) joined the MedTech edition of the Venture Challenge. They are developing a painless, home based capillary blood collection device that enables patients — initially those with colorectal cancer — to perform blood sampling at home, reducing hospital visits, improving comfort and increasing adherence. The device aims to make frequent monitoring more accessible and patient friendly, and was developed within Erasmus MC by clinicians, engineers, and health innovators.
HomeRun: “During the venture challenge our team got feedback on our value proposition and we gained a better insight on where our invention was needed the most and where we could potentially learn the most. We also learned which steps we still need to take before we can bring our first product to the market. It was an intense and interesting program which helped us towards our goal: making blood withdrawal as easy as flipping a switch.”
The#ViroGenesis team (Tami Zhang, Anna Mykytyn, Tim Breugem and Bastian Bedaux Knoppen) joined the ProefdierVrij edition of the Venture Challenge. They have created a ground-breaking, in vitro platform that enables the culture of viruses under Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP)-compliant conditions. This platform overcomes long-standing technical barriers and allows the reliable production of high-quality, true-to-nature, and clinically relevant human respiratory viruses facilitating vaccine and antiviral development cycles.
ViroGenesis: “The Venture Challenge offers an ideal launchpad to refine our idea and turn it into a market ready commercialization strategy. Surrounded by ambitious peers and seasoned mentors, we have created concrete action points to become investor ready and move ViroGenesis forward, driving impact across vaccine and antiviral development.”
Erasmus MC TTO at AUTM Annual Meeting 2026 in Seattle
This February, our Tech Transfer Office joined one of the world’s leading gatherings for research commercialization: the AUTM Annual Meeting 2026 in Seattle, USA. Representing our team were Hugo Stegman, MSc, business development manager and Carmen Correa Martin, LLM – RTTP, coordinator TTO team, who spent several days exchanging ideas with tech transfer peers from across the globe.
The conference offered insights into topics central to our work, including:
- How investors evaluate university startups and strategies for de-risking early-stage ventures
- Best practices in software and copyright licensing
- Structuring equity, royalties, and startup license agreements
- Commercialization pathways for medical devices
- Patent eligibility considerations for AI and software innovations
Beyond the sessions, the event provided valuable discussions on emerging concepts such as royalty monetization and inventor rights, highlighting evolving trends in the field.
Seattle proved to be an inspiring setting for reflection and collaboration. The AUTM community once again reinforced a shared mission: enabling innovation, empowering inventors, and creating meaningful impact.
