Limula: The Venture Leader Biotech on a mission to make the most personalized cancer treatments possible

24.05.2023 15:00, Guillaume Tinsel

Meet Thomas Eaton, COO of Limula. The startup offers a cell processing platform for the production of highly personalized Cell & Gene Therapies (CGT), on a mission to help make the most personalized cancer treatments available to patients in need, at a reasonable cost, wherever they are. In June, Thomas will be joining nine other biotech innovators on a business development and investor roadshow in Boston

Name: Thomas Eaton 
Location: Switzerland 
Nationality: Naturalised Swiss, originally British
Graduated from: UniBasel, PhD, 2013 
Job title: Co-founder and COO 
Number of employees: 8 
Money raised: >10M in non-dilutive grants and awards 
 

---

Whom does your product or solution help, and how? 
Limula provides a platform technology that enables manufacturing cell therapies at scale. ‘CGT Made Easy’ is more than a tagline for Limula: a simple design invention at the core of our modular and fully automated manufacturing platform. The patented technology can perform all steps of cell therapy production in a single device. With end-to-end automation and integrated process analytics to build a game-changing tool for an industry struggling to scale during the transition between the dozen doses needed for early clinical trials to the thousands of batches required to routinely treat patients. 

What market are you addressing and what is the potential of your startup in that market?  
The multi-step cell therapy process currently requires multiple devices, and human manipulations, with the risk of contamination. By carrying out the process in a closed system, Limula’s solution saves time, simplifies logistics, and removes the need for large sterile facilities, cutting costs. We initially focus on clinical research centers and small biopharma companies at the pre-clinical stage. We are currently under NDA with several therapy owners to discuss co-development adapted to their use case and accelerate their adoption. 

How did you come up with the idea for your startup? 
We started with a breathtaking problem and then invented our way to an automated solution. Cell-based cancer therapies such as CAR T represent a revolution in personalized medicine, with the potential to save the lives of > 2 million cancer patients annually. However, their manufacturing does not scale, leading to limited capacity at an exorbitant price, thus only 0.1% of patients currently benefit. The production of cell therapies is complex and multi-step involving the manipulation of precious human samples. Our CTO, Yann Pierson reversed the traditional thinking, with a unique design invention that keeps the cells in the same place, rather than moving cells around between steps.   

How do you think the Venture Leaders roadshow will help you achieve your vision? 
After focusing mainly on the European ecosystem, we would hugely benefit from extending our network in the US, and in particular making connections with KOL, CGT industry leaders, investors, and potential customers on the east coast as we begin planning for a US office. We are looking for constructive criticism, particularly inputs on our business development market entry strategy, from Life Science industry veterans. 

What excites you most about your work right now? 
At Limula we are working on a truly life-changing technology, with good early traction, and now fundraising to bring our product to clinical quality for treating patients in the next two years. This trip could make all the difference in closing our seed round and seeing the plan put into action! 

How did you go about building your team? 
The founding team was built on the complementarity of the founders’ skills, a long-standing relationship, and experience working together on several previous entrepreneurial projects. Luc HENRY, CEO, is the public face of the company, establishing and nurturing relationships with partners and investors, and scouting for talent. As the CTO, the role of Yann PIERSON is to supervise product innovation and development. Thomas EATON is taking care of company processes and financials, legal contracts, and quality standards. We’ve surrounded ourselves with skilled talents eager to see their work make a difference.  
 

---

"To be successful, a deep-tech start-up needs 3 things: a great team, a great product, and a compelling market opportunity."

---

What are your team’s key achievements to date? 
With thanks to the support of Innosuisse, fondation FIT, and the Gebert Rüf Stiftung, Limula has completed a Proof-of-Concept study with EPFL, UNIGE, and HEIG-VD demonstrating CAR T manufacturing can be performed in our functional prototype, with cell products identical to benchmark. We have an R&D pipeline financed with > CHF 10 million in fully secured non-dilutive grants for further modules and are now racing to deploy our technology as quickly as possible. 

How did you come up with the name of your startup?
As a team of scientists – we’re really geeks at heart, so strap on your inner geek for this tale; Limula’s central concept is embedded in our patented bioreactor. The technology lent itself to the design of our logo; whose shape resembles that of a horseshoe crab. These are the so-called ‘living fossils’ and all stem from the genus Limulidae, with the sub-species Limulus polyphemus being actively used in the biotech industry. The blood of a Limulus is extremely sensitive to bacterial exosome contamination, collating instantly on contact with contamination, and is still a required test in the batch release of many medicines, known as the Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL) test. Our initial use case has been in CAR-T; using blood products where the blood of a patient is hosted in our Limula bioreactor; named in tribute to these ancient, but oh-so-modern wonders of nature. 

What is the most important lesson you have learned as a founder? 
To be successful, a deep-tech start-up needs 3 things: a great team, a great product, and a compelling market opportunity. If you feel like one of these 3 aspects is missing, it may not be worth the risk. I had to learn this the hard way, through involvement in projects where two of three aspects were in place, but you spend all your energy mitigating for something missing. Have the tenacity to be persistent and don’t compromise, move on until you have all 3 in resonance. With Limula, we’ve had this resonance from day 1. 

What is the best piece of advice you have ever received and from whom?
As a motto to overcome your inhibitions, and get to the points that matter; I’m guided by Dr Seuss whose words let me forgive myself when I reflect on a missed behavior; “say what you think, and do what you feel – because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter, don’t mind.” 

What is your favorite podcast and why?  
I know the BBC Radio 4 news schedule by heart; to fall asleep at night I have the news headlines playing barely audible, it allows me to follow current events, but also when there’s nothing newsworthy playing is the best white noise to drift off to sleep to. 

What is always in your fridge and why?  
Cold milk, because you may take the Englishman out of England but you can’t keep ‘em from a proper English cuppa – boiling water, blacker than black tea (Darjeeling 1st flush anyone?), and a dash of fresh milk – never seen a problem that can’t solve. 
 

---

ABOUT THE PROGRAM
The Venture Leaders Biotech 2023 were chosen from over 70 applications by a jury of investors and technology experts. The roadshow in Boston, the vibrant life science hub, provides a unique opportunity for entrepreneurs to accelerate their startups' expansion in the US while expanding their professional network and profiting from workshops with investors and industry leaders. This year's Venture Leaders Biotech program is organized by Venturelab in partnership with Swissnex Boston and supported by Debiopharm, Novartis, EY - Ernst & Young, VISCHER, EPFL, ETH Zurich, Hansjörg Wyss, and the Swiss Biotech Association.
 

---