Palobiofarma announces that it has been included among the 99 innovative companies in the European Innovation Council Accelerator

Palobiofarma has received the approval of the European project that finances Phase II of the PBF-680 product in COPD. Additionally, it offers the possibility of partial financing of Phase III of PBF-680.

This is an important financing in a very competitive European call, which reaffirms once again the quality and potential of our projects.

The European Commission selected 99 innovative start-ups and SMEs that will receive EUR 627 million of EU funding to help them bring their promising technologies to the market.

The selected companies will receive grants and/or equity investments, depending on their needs, up to a maximum of EUR 17.5 million.

They were selected following a rigorous process, introduced under Horizon Europe, involving an ideas screening stage, and full applications assessed by external experts and an interview with a jury of experienced investors and entrepreneurs.

The selected companies have a wide geographical spread spanning 21 countries, including seven from Horizon Europe “widening countries” that have lower levels of research and innovation performance. The selection also confirms the high demand for EIC equity investments with 65 of the 99 companies requesting equity investments of up to EUR 414 million (out of the total EUR 627 million). In most cases, the companies will receive the grant financing within the coming months, while the equity investment is likely to take longer as the arrangements for implementing EIC equity need to be re-established under Horizon Europe. This delay will also affect companies selected in the previous funding round.

Companies can submit their ideas to the EIC Accelerator at any time. For ideas meeting the EIC criteria for excellence, impact and risk-level, companies are invited to prepare full applications to submit to one of the regular cut-off dates. Due to a delay in the adoption of the EIC Work Programme, the January 2022 cut-off date has been postponed. We will inform about the next cut-off date as soon as possible.

Background information

The EIC Accelerator offers start-ups and SMEs grants of up to EUR 2.5 million combined with equity investments through the EIC Fund ranging from EUR 0.5 to EUR 15 million. In addition to financial support, all projects benefit from a range of Business Acceleration Services that provide access to leading expertise, corporates, investors and ecosystem actors.

Since its launch in March 2021, over 4,000 start-ups and SMEs have sent their ideas and over 1800 have submitted full applications to the cut-offs in June and October. The companies announced today were among the 1098 who submitted to the second cut-off on 6 October, while the 65 companies selected following the June cut-off were announced already in October.