Biotech Firm LenioBio Lands €3.7M to Advance Fast, Scalable Protein Medicine Manufacturing

LenioBio, a biotech company based in Düsseldorf, Germany, has received a €3.7 million grant from the European Health and Digital Executive Agency under the EU4Health programme. The funding will be used to scale up its proprietary protein expression platform and advance its application in modern medicine manufacturing.

The project, titled “Innovative protein medicine biomanufacturing with Continuous Modular ALiCE,” aims to position LenioBio’s platform as a disruptive force in the production of complex protein-based therapeutics. ALiCE, the company’s cell-free protein synthesis technology, is designed to bypass the traditional constraints of cell-based systems, enabling faster and more flexible biomanufacturing.

The grant will support three core objectives.

First, the company will focus on increasing the scale and efficiency of ALiCE lysate production. This involves improving process yields, increasing batch sizes, and transitioning from batch-based to continuous manufacturing, a move that could significantly enhance speed and output.

Second, LenioBio plans to expand the platform’s capability to produce specific classes of protein-based medicines. These include vaccines, multispecific antibodies and growth factors. To achieve this, the team will engineer new biological functionalities and demonstrate how the modular ALiCE system can be adapted for different production needs at scale.

Third, the company will begin preparing ALiCE for GMP-grade production. This includes developing analytical testing protocols, implementing robust quality systems, and assembling the regulatory documentation required for future filings.

LenioBio is led by CEO André Goerke and was established as a registered company in Germany in 2016. It maintains its corporate offices in Düsseldorf, with research and development (R&D) and production facilities located in Aachen. The company’s mission is to transform the way protein medicines are discovered, developed, and manufactured, removing the limitations of cell-based expression systems and unlocking new potential in biopharmaceutical innovation.