Metabiota Awarded Funding By European Commission To Help in Fight Against Ebola
Part of the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation – Horizon 2020
Metabiota Inc. announced today that the European Commission (EC) has awarded funding to the Company to work with European and Canadian collaborators on an advanced project aimed at validating both a highly sensitive diagnostic test and an extremely promising treatment for Ebola virus disease (EVD), which will help decrease the number of deaths and prevent further spread of the disease. Funding is based on a grant through The EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation – Horizon 2020, the largest EC Research and Innovation Programme, with nearly €80 billion of available funding over the next seven years. Metabiota is the first U.S. subcontractor to be selected by the EC for an important endeavor of this nature.
The 2014 Ebola epidemic is the largest on record, with more than 15,000 reported cases and over 5,000 deaths to date, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Metabiota has played a pivotal role in the fight against Ebola, having led the diagnostic efforts for all of Sierra Leone and, in this capacity, having identified the first confirmed in-country case.
“The EC is embarking upon an important initiative in the fight against Ebola, and we are honored to be among the first U.S. companies to be selected to join the team of esteemed collaborators,” said Mary Guttieri, Executive Vice President of Metabiota. “This recognition is validation of the work that our dedicated team has been doing in West Africa for the past several years and, more importantly, the critical contributions our team has made in supporting the current outbreak.”
For its part, Metabiota will contribute in-country field experience to help improve diagnostics and develop a highly promising antibody treatment, which has been successfully used for other infectious diseases validated by the European Commission and WHO.