We are proud to introduce the participants of the Animal-Free Venture Challenge 2026! Meet Daranamix, LubaLabs, NuClear, PArtCell Solutions and ViroGenesis, the five teams that will spend three intensive months working on the business skills they need to successfully bring their animal-free innovations to market.on the business skills they need to successfully bring their animal-free innovations to the market during an intensive 3-month program.
Proefdiervrij Venture Challenge
This year, several teams of animal-free pioneers will once again turn their scientific breakthroughs into solid business cases – with professional guidance, of course. Together, we will ensure that animal-free innovations make their way from the lab to the market. The goal: to increase the impact of animal-free innovation on the number of laboratory animals.
This year’s participants are:
Daranamix
José Manuel Rivera Arbelaez, Jana Hecking, Mariel Cano Jorge and Robert Passier take us to the heartstream of tomorrow: they have developed the Multi-Heart Plate (MHP), a human-centred solution for animal models for discovering heart medicines and researching heart disease. MHP enables the standardised creation of multiple fluid-pumping heart chambers using reprogrammed stem cells. Combined with sensors that provide real-time measurements, MHP delivers clinically relevant measurement results. This enables safer, faster and more predictive testing for the next generation of medicines.
LubaLabs
Imran Avci, Duygu Akbulut and Mahdi Mozdoor Dashtabi are developing a Brillouin wellplate platform that allows human tissue models to be analysed in 3D without damaging the tissue or requiring intervention. This technology makes it possible to quantitatively map tissue mechanics in intact organoids and spheroids over time.
NuClear’s goal is to improve the predictive value of 3D human models in drug development and disease research. This provides a functional readout that complements molecular and viability assays in preclinical research. The platform is designed for compatibility with standard multiwell formats and high-throughput workflows.
NuClear
To meet the need for more accessible treatments for cystic fibrosis, Ewart Kuijk, Jari Bulkens and Krijn van der Steen have developed a sensitive, scalable and human-relevant test that accelerates the discovery of cystic fibrosis drugs without the use of laboratory animals. In addition to cystic fibrosis, NuClear’s invention also has great potential in the fields of toxicology, microscopy and the automation of cellular tests.
PArtCell Solutions
Despite the fact that new methods are increasingly being used in the discovery of new medicines, animal components such as Matrigel and foetal calf serum remain an important basis. Andre de Goes, Arnold Boersma and Danielle Counotte want to change this by creating artificial cells in the laboratory without animal components. PartCell Solutions uses these to model diseases such as Huntington’s disease, a terrible, incurable neurodegenerative disease, and to investigate the interactions between drugs and their targets.
Their mission is to improve decision-making in the early stages of drug development and increase the success rate of clinical trials. Despite the use of new methods in drug development, animal components such as Matrigel continue to be used in drug research, with millions of laboratory animals used worldwide every year. However, animal models often do not provide reliable predictions for the human situation.
Virogenesis
Respiratory viruses pose a constant threat to global health, ranging from seasonal infections to pandemics such as COVID-19. Despite this burden, many respiratory viruses remain understudied or difficult to develop vaccines and antivirals for because they cannot be reliably cultured for clinical use. As a result, vaccine and antiviral development is slow, costly, and often unsuccessful at various stages.
At ViroGenesis, Tami Zhang, Anna Mykytyn, Tim Breugem, Bastian Bedaux Knoppen, and Carmen Correa Martin have overcome this challenge by producing high-quality, clinical-grade respiratory viruses using completely animal-free human lung organoid technology. This approach accelerates the development of vaccines and antivirals while reducing the use of animals, eliminating the need for animal models and animal reagents at multiple stages.
And now: bootcamps and the award ceremony
From February the participants participate in the first bootcamp of the Proefdiervrij Venture Challenge. During this three-day event, the teams will delve deeply into the world of entrepreneurship and work on their business case under the guidance of experienced coaches and experts.
This bootcamp is the first step in a three-month trajectory in which the teams will not only sharpen their ideas, but also build a future in which innovation and animal-free science go hand in hand.
The icing on the cake is an award ceremony on April 24, where one of the accepted teams will receive a nice cash prize with which they can further develop their startup.
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Previous winners
HeartSmart: fast, efficient, accurate animal-free heart model (2025)
HeartSmart has developed a groundbreaking animal-free method for studying fibrosis, the stiffening of heart tissue. Fibrosis prevents the heart from beating properly. The model consists of cultured human heart tissue and measures the contraction force of a healthy and a diseased heart.
Hello R&D: Personalized organoids for liver research (2024)
Hello R&D is developing an organoid that is built from the main cell type in the liver. This makes the model function as a reliable human system with which researchers can predict the effect of drugs on the liver.
VEO: Organoids of the respiratory tract, intestinal tract and brain (2023)
VEO is developing human organoids of the respiratory tract, intestinal tract and brain to study the infection of human viruses in their natural environment, thus making the use of laboratory animals redundant.
Anya Biotech: Human heart cells in a culture dish (2022)
Anya Biotech is creating research models with human heart cells in a culture dish. With this, they replace laboratory animals used in heart research and develop human-oriented medicines for life-threatening heart diseases.
Avatar Zoo: VR models for anatomy lessons (2021)
Avatar Zoo is developing various VR models that can be used for anatomy lessons and practicing skills.
We wish the participating teams of 2026 the best of luck and lots of fun!
About Proefdiervrij
How we treat animals says something about who we are as a society. This is especially true when those animals are used in research intended to improve human health. Proefdiervrij is working towards a world without animal testing by promoting and accelerating human-centred, animal-free science.
That change is already underway. Animal testing is increasingly being replaced by human-centred models that better reflect what happens in the human body. Yet animal testing often remains the standard. With 2030 as the deadline on the horizon, we are working towards a tipping point where animal-free methods are the norm. In this way, we are helping to let go of what no longer fits and building research that helps people without unnecessarily using animals.