NUI MAYNOOTH has launched a spin-out company that provides drug development services for the pharmaceuticals sector. The company expects to reach a €6 million turnover by 2016.

Cerebeo will employ two to four people in its first two years, said founder Prof John Lowry, professor of chemistry at NUI Maynooth. Dr Jennifer Craig, a sensor design specialist, has been appointed chief executive.

The company will provide drug testing services using mouse and rat animal models to pharmaceutical companies developing new drugs for neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, Prof Lowry said yesterday.

Cerebeo grows out of a spin-out formed by Prof Lowry in July 2009, BlueBox Sensors. He developed proprietary sensor technology that allows the direct real-time monitoring of brain chemistry in a living mouse or rat. This allows a researcher to test a drug and watch what chemical changes were taking place in the brain.

The first company was formed to sell this technology directly to drug companies able to do in-house testing, he said.

Cerebeo will be based on the NUI Maynooth campus. “The university is providing the lab space for the company and a fair portion of the equipment needed,” he said. In turn it would retain an unspecified percentage share of the company.

Prof Lowry won the 2009 Enterprise Ireland Lifesciences commercialisation Award for the formation of BlueBox, and now a second company has arisen based on his research work.

Key clients include Eli Lilly, GSK and Solvay Pharmaceuticals.