Daranamix: at the heart of innovative science

Right after winning the Proefdiervrij Venture Challenge 2026 on April 24, we talked to José Manuel Rivera Arbeláez (CEO) and Mariel Cano Jorge (COO) of Daranamix. They gave us their fresh reaction to this ultimate step in a very intensive challenge. And… how are they going to use the research prize of €25.000? 

Congratulations! How do you feel?

“Thank you. We’re really excited. It was a lot of work doing this challenge, and now this is the cherry on top to continue working like this. We’re really happy with the process, with how much we’ve learned. And now we have even more motivation to continue and bring this idea to life.” 

José, can you introduce Daranamix?

“Daranamix is a company that makes mini-hearts. And with these mini-hearts we are trying to research heartfailure, more specific: systolic dysfunction (also known as heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, HFrEF). To do so, we try to mimic as much as possible what happens in the human heart – but in the lab. So we can test without animals, in a base. We bring it to pharma and then pharma can test and redevelop.” 

Mariel, why is this project so important? 

“This is very important, because cardiovascular diseases are the main cause of death in the world. And there is still no cure for the systolic dysfunction that we are focussing on. We think that by focusing on our platform and our expertise, we can help pharma find solutions for this kind of disease faster, and of course reduce the use of animal testing in the process.” 

“We can help pharma find solutions for this kind of disease faster, and of course reduce the use of animal testing in the process”

How did you experience the Proefdiervrij Venture Challenge 2026?

“It’s a real challenge. And it’s not only our vision: we have a team of four members. During the challenge we tackled difficult questions together, like: What are we going to do? And how are we going to do it? How do we address the possible clients? We really pushed through to learn more, become stronger as a team and complete this technology.”  

Can you elaborate on one of the hard parts?

“In the beginning we were completely lost with the financials, we had to talk about things we never thought about before. You think you have a very complete idea, but then you stop and look at it from a new perspective, and see that you have missed a whole part. Then you start questioning things and learn to understand how things work. That’s all part of the learning process.” 

And what was an absolute highlight?

“Winning the challenge is definitely an ‘up’! But we also had a very special moment in the lab, when we were growing and seeing that pharma was really positive about what we were doing.”   

Now that you’ve won the prize… what will be your next step? 

“That’s a very good question of course! We have some priorities in terms of the validation of the platform and also see how we can make this faster, so we can already start reaching out to customers.” 

How are you going to celebrate the victory?

“Well, first we need to bring the team together, because one of the members is in Japan and the other one is in Frankfurt. But after that we will come together and go for a very nice dinner.”