The young company Curio Biotech uses human tissue to test cosmetic products and medicines. Thanks to its innovative working method, the company is helping to reduce the number of animal experiments. The company’s founder, Chennakesava Cuddapah, sees great potential in Curio Biotech’s field of activity. In this interview, he gives us a look behind the scenes and explains how his company has developed since its launch in 2017.

“Curiosity” is Chennakesava Cuddapah‘s answer when asked what the name of his start-up Curio Biotech (derived from the English word “curious”) stands for. When he set up the company and became independent, he was curious about how his life would develop and what lay ahead, laughs the Indian-born Cuddapah. According to Cuddapah, the name suits the company very well in principle: “Anyone who works for us should be curious about science and enjoy developing their own solutions“. This has been the company’s mission since it was founded in 2017. Since then, it has been based at the BioArk in Visp and provides services to pharmaceutical companies and other sectors such as cosmetics and nutraceutical producers.

Tests on human tissues and cells

The young company’s core competence lies in the field of in vitro studies. To do this, Curio Biotech relies on human cells: “We use discarded tissue, isolate the cells and carry out biological work to test the effect of a product“. The primary cells used by the company for its tests come, for example, from skin tissue available after abdominoplasty or breast reduction operations. “The cells only develop for a few experiments, and then they die. We carry out tests and make the results available to customers in a report“, explains Cuddapah on the usual procedure. For example, the effect of sun cream can be tested on skin cultures.

Curio Biotech’s work is therefore based on tissue that would normally simply be discarded. Although there is enough of it, it can be difficult, according to Cuddapah, to obtain discarded tissue in Switzerland. On the other hand, a positive side-effect of the company’s work is that it makes animal testing superfluous. “We don’t use animals for our experiments, because tests on human tissue provide the most relevant information for our bodies“. In his view, this is particularly true in the cosmetics sector, where animal testing is now largely banned. But in the pharmaceutical industry too, animal experiments are increasingly being dispensed with. This is made possible by the work of innovative companies such as Curio Biotech.

The Corona crisis, a killjoy

The Valais is an ideal location for the start-up, not least because the BioArk site is in the immediate vicinity of Visp railway station and is easily accessible. What’s more, as the company’s founder points out, the support from The Ark Foundation is very good – we benefit from the know-how of the canton’s innovation promotion and enjoy the proximity to other companies in different sectors. The company’s founder also has a personal connection with the Alpine canton. “I also wanted to give something back to the Valais, as my wife is originally from the canton“, he explains. The couple currently live near Bern with their two children.

Cudappah commutes almost every day between Bern and the Oberwallis. In the meantime, the company has also relocated its headquarters to Visp, where it has been since it began operations. After its creation, the company expanded from 2018 onwards. This was followed by ups and downs. “We stabilised and won some big customers. But then Covid came along. We suffered a lot from the effects of the crisis for two years,” he describes. The company also lost customers because of the conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East. “We are now trying to recover and grow again“, continues the company founder.

The company wants to take the next step

Curio Biotech currently employs a small team and has set itself the goal of increasing its workforce to ten, with a correspondingly high turnover. At the same time, the work-life balance of its employees needs to be ensured. To achieve this, Cuddapah believes that more marketing will be needed in the future. “One of the biggest challenges is visibility. Many people don’t know we exist. At present, customers come mainly from Switzerland – but all these countries are located outside Visp – and also from Germany, France, Denmark, Italy, the United States, South Korea, Israel and India.”

To ensure that it can continue to grow in the future, the young Visp-based company also wants to expand its range of services. “We want to expand our portfolio, especially in the pharmaceutical sector,” says Cuddapah, pointing the way ahead. “The focus here is on autoimmune diseases and cancer, where we could continue to develop screening technologies“. To gain a firmer foothold in this field, the company is looking to make contact with potential customers around the world. For Curio Biotech, the next step is to convince potential future partners and investors to embrace the company’s mission and arouse “curiosity” about it.

Get to know Curio Biotech’s Founder
Dr Chennakesava Cuddapah obtained his doctorate in biology from the University of Berne. He completed his postdoctoral studies in the Department of Biomedicine in Basel, as a Research Associate in the Clinical Sciences Department at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle (USA) and as a Senior Scientist in the Rheumatology Clinic at the Cantonal Hospital in Aarau. In 2011, Cuddapah joined the life sciences industry as Head of Research and Development. He then went independent: in 2017, he set up the start-up Curio Biotech AG. “We are a science-driven company,” explains the founder to define the character of his business. The 46-year-old Indian is married to a Valais woman. Together, they live in the Berne region with their two children.

➡️ Visit Curio Biotech website : Curio Biotech

➡️ Connect with Chennakesava Cuddapah