TNO launches Peregrion to boost market impact of its technology that accelerates medicine development

Thema:: Advanced microtracer studies

25 March 2024

Ten years of development at TNO has yielded a track record and acceptance by regulators of the biomedical accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) technology. TNO aims to boost the technology’s market impact by both developing the technology further and launching Peregrion.

The purpose of this spin-off company is to aid pharmaceutical companies in accelerating their own early clinical development programmes. Using biomedical accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) for microtracer studies optimises and de-risks the development of candidate drugs. Peregrion is the 41^st spin-off since the start of TNO Tech Transfer.

spin-off-peregrion-imagev2-1484x835 — Steven Erpelinck (left) and Wouter Vaes (right) standing by the biomedical accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) technology.

Peregrion will build on TNO’s legacy of generating early human microtracer data from absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion studies. TNO has optimised the process through the years, for instance by developing a sample preparation technology to enable the detection, identification and quantification of all human metabolites as early as clinical phase 1. Currently, a large number of top-20 pharmaceutical companies are using TNO’s AMS technology to advance their medicine development programmes. In the meantime, the acceptance by industry is growing for the microtracer approach that will be transferred to Peregrion.

‘We have clearly managed to position the microtracer approach as one of the most promising animal-free innovation trajectories. Moreover, we have now reached to point that the global pharmaceutical industry is embracing our technology to implement the ‘human first, human only’ strategy as the preferred method to obtain drug metabolism data, from a scientific as well as a business perspective.’

Wouter Vaes

Lead Scientist TNO, Chief Science Officer/co-founder Peregrion

‘TNO positions Peregrion to further build on the AMS technology that we developed, offering the ideal setting to support clients in the pharmaceutical industry with bringing the best medicines to patients earlier.’

Steven Erpelinck

Sr. Business Developer TNO, Chief Commercial Officer/co-founder Peregrion

Broadening biomedical application

TNO will continue to focus on developing the AMS technology further and on broadening the biomedical application field of AMS and microtracer studies. TNO is currently working on applying this technology for biomarkers and efficacy research in early clinical development. In addition, TNO is maturing this technology for data enrichment studies of biologics and paediatric drugs.

About AMS technology

The development of medicines is a long and arduous process. To register a new medicine by submitting a dossier to regulators like the FDA and EMA can take between 10 and 15 years, with the whole process costing about 1 to 1.5 billion euros. Ninety percent of the medicines in clinical development never make it to the registration phase. The AMS technology using microtracers can deliver relevant biopharmaceutical data at earlier stages of the programme and potentially reduce the drug development time by 2 years. This greatly contributes to medicines becoming available to patients much sooner. Read more about TNO's AMS technology.