The European Investment Bank has provided a €20 million loan to BioLamina, a Swedish biotech company that offers laminin-based cell culture matrices widely used by developers of stem cell therapies. This funding aims to enhance the production of laminin technologies and advance animal-free drug safety testing methods.
BioLamina, based in Stockholm, specializes in producing protein scaffolding for stem cell growth in therapeutic applications and has secured this loan from the European Investment Bank. The funds will aid in developing laminin technologies for next-generation cell therapies and improving animal-free drug safety testing methods, as per the EIB’s Stockholm office.
BioLamina plays a crucial role within the cell therapy ecosystem by providing the extracellular matrix proteins necessary for growing and differentiating stem cells outside the body, rather than directly developing therapies. Its main product line, Biolaminin®, offers full-length human recombinant laminin proteins, mimicking conditions found in natural tissue environments. As key structural components of the basement membrane, laminins induce specific cell responses such as adhesion, survival, and differentiation.
Most commercial alternatives use truncated or non-human laminins, but BioLamina asserts that full-length human laminins offer a more accurate biological environment, leading to consistent and clinically compliant cell products. These matrices have therapeutic applications in treating conditions like type 1 diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, heart failure, liver failure, and cancer.
BioLamina collaborates with Novo Nordisk for diabetes stem cell therapies and partners with Cell X Technologies for iPSC-based therapeutic manufacturing workflows. Founded in 2008 based on Dr Karl Tryggvason’s research at the Karolinska Institutet and Duke-NUS Medical School, BioLamina is headquartered in Greater Stockholm and employs roughly 100 to 117 people.
Key shareholders include Bure Equity AB, Lauxera Capital Partners, the Tryggvason family, and Northislet. In July 2024, the company raised €19 million in equity financing, led by Lauxera Capital Partners. The €20 million EIB loan represents the company’s first disclosed debt financing and aligns with EIB’s BioTechEU initiative to mobilize €10 billion in biotech investment from 2026 to 2027.
CEO Klaus Langhoff-Roos emphasizes BioLamina’s mission to prove that “full-length equals full-function,” applicable to its animal-free drug safety testing products, which replace traditional animal-derived extracellular matrices in toxicology screening. The EIB loan will support both aspects of the business.