Lemba Therapeutics (“Lemba”) is a startup biotechnology company founded by three professors from Radboud University: Professor Musa Mhlanga, Professor Mihai Netea, and Professor Leo Joosten. Lemba has officially set up Dutch operations in Nijmegen to allow collaboration with Radboud. Lemba’s commercial activities are located in the US (New York).
Lemba is developing drugs that work by targeting long non coding RNA (lncRNA). LncRNA are genomic transcripts that do not contain instructions for making proteins, but have other important biologic functions. As the majority of the genome makes non coding RNA, lncRNA opens a vast new frontier of possibilities for treating diseases.
The company intends to grow its Nijmegen operations over the next three years, moving to their own laboratory outside the Radboud campus and hiring more staff. Lemba sees itself very much as a Nijmegen company.
“Lemba’s commercial management, most of which is from the US, has found Oost NL and NFIA incredibly helpful for navigating the business environment of the Netherlands. Oost NL and NFIA have provided valuable help for understanding Dutch employment and business regulations and the options for Dutch and European research incentives. Lemba is very grateful for Oost NL and NFIA’s assistance,” according to Zachary Singer, CEO of Lemba.
