€15 million will be provided to IRBM to expand medical research and development to fight coronavirus and other infectious diseases.The project is being financed via the InnovFin initiative, in cooperation with the European Commission, funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme&.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) has signed a €20 million loan agreement with Belgian diagnostics company miDiagnostics, to support its research and development activities targeting infectious diseases, and in particular the scale-up of its new rapid COVID-19 PCR test. The EIB financing is supported by the Infectious Diseases Finance Facility window under the EU’s InnovFin – EU finance for innovators programme, backed by the European Union’s research and innovation programme Horizon 2020, which guarantees EIB loans for highly innovative projects.
In the context of the ongoing coronavirus crisis, miDiagnostics adapted its R&D and product development plans towards the development of a rapid PCR test for SARS-CoV-2, aimed at providing PCR accuracy whilst being just as fast as rapid antigen tests.