No More
Needles

Austria Wirtschaftsservice, the promotional bank of the Austrian federal government, recognizes companies that have turned research findings into profitable innovations through its annual PHÖNIX founders’ award. In early 2025, the biotechnology company NovoArc won the award in the start-up category. “We are grateful for the media attention our work has received,” a happy Oliver Spadiut says about winning the prize. Spadiut, a biochemical engineer, founded NovoArc together with his colleagues David Wurm and Julian Quehenberger as a spin-off of the Technical University of Vienna (TU Wien) in 2021. The company produces and sells unique stabilizing lipids that keep active pharmaceutical ingredients intact as they pass the stomach, helping the body absorb them more effectively in the intestine.

Better drug absorption

Many active ingredients are either poorly absorbed by the human body or not at all, which is why they must be administered to patients through injections – much to the chagrin of people who are afraid of needles. What’s more, vaccines require costly cold chain management, which makes medical care for patients in remote areas challenging. Through many years of research, the bioengineers were able to solve the problem of how to administer drugs in a way that helps the body absorb the active agents. Upon discovering particularly robust lipids in microorganisms, they further developed a technology through which these lipids protect the medicine from gastric juices ten to 15 times more effectively than conventional lipids.

The makings of a survival artist ...

The lipids in question are derived from a special microorganism that thrives in harsh conditions. Sulfolobus acidocaldarius is an archaeon found in the vicinity of volcanoes, more specifically, in sulfur springs with temperatures of about 90°C and a pH value between 1 and 5. Through many years of intensive work, the TU Wien researchers discovered the reason why these microorganisms do so well in taxing conditions: they are equipped with special lipids that stabilize their cell membranes.

... that protects active ingredients ...

These lipids are perfectly suited to protect active ingredients against degradation. Many orally administered substances are broken down by acid and enzymes in the human stomach, passing the intestines without being properly absorbed into the bloodstream. Thanks to the lipids developed by NovoArc, the active ingredients pass the stomach unharmed and are absorbed in the intestines.

... and facilitates the storage and transport of drugs

And there’s another benefit: as the lipids provide for a high level of stability, active ingredients can be stored more easily. Some drugs and vaccines must be maintained at temperatures of up to 70°C below zero. “Through our technology, pharmaceutical products – among those also mRNA vaccines – can be stored at room temperature, which makes costly cold chain management redundant and thus facilitates medical care for patients in remote areas of the world,” Spadiut explains.

Natural killer cells

Currently, Spadiut is investigating so-called natural killer (NK) cells at TU Wien as part of a project funded by the FWF. NK cells are important components of the human immune system. “Ten percent of our white blood cells are natural killer cells. Among the different cell types of our immune system, they stand out because of their ability to eradicate malignant cells in a very targeted way,” Spadiut says, explaining why this research will have such a great impact.

Producing killer cells better and faster

In the past, producing these cells required a cumbersome process. To treat a patient with NK cells, they first have to be extracted from the patient’s own blood. The cells are then cultivated and made to multiply outside the patient’s body, only to be finally re-injected to fight the disease. In order to cultivate these cells and make sure that they can be safely and effectively used for treatment, their natural environment, i.e., the human body, must be simulated. But cell properties differ from patient to patient. As a result, all parameters of the cultivation process must be adapted to the ideal state with regard to the patient’s NK cells. In the long run, the researchers hope to identify and understand the ideal parameters for cultivating NK cells to be able to produce sufficient amounts to treat patients faster while simultaneously maintaining the cell’s high toxicity levels. Several publications and two patents have already sprung from the FWF-funded project.

Decoupling economic growth from resource consumption

Oliver Spadiut is also a key researcher in the FWF’s “Circular Bioengineering” Cluster of Excellence, which was kicked off in late 2024. In this cluster, an interdisciplinary team based in five research locations across Austria is looking for ways to achieve economic growth that is not tied to an increased use of resources. The use of our limited resources to produce consumer goods creates wealth in the short term, but in the long run, it will put the livelihood of many species at risk. The researchers are looking for renewable resources and ways to use them efficiently and in a circular way to help us move away from materials based on fossil fuels and towards organic alternatives.

Developing new things and crunching figures

His advice for young colleagues considering founding a start-up is to develop something that’s really new and take calculations very seriously. “What is the state of the art? What is new about my contribution, and could I get a patent for it? Is there a need, a market for it? You have to assess the competition on a global level.” Founders should figure out production costs early on and find out whether there is a market for their product. “If you see that there are already a hundred companies offering what you have in mind, don’t get in line to be number one hundred and one. In that case, it’s better to leave it be and not have to close shop after only two or three years,” he points out. The industry he is active in is particularly expensive, requiring instruments such as bioreactors.

Making use of consulting offers

His advice for young colleagues is to take courses on cost calculation. There are numerous workshops that offer helpful input. He points to the i2c Innovation Incubation Center at TU Wien, Vienna’s high-tech incubator INiTS and the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) as examples. “In the beginning, everything was exciting and we were on a founder’s high, but then we made sure to do the math right away and figured out where we had to get to have a product that sells,” he remembers about the early days of his company. Today, NovoArc counts 17 employees and business is going strong.

(Video credit: NovoArc GmbH, FFG)