About Aisling Foley

About ExCulture

ExCulture is an R&D biotechnology startup founded in 2022 based on a patented platform technology developed at TU Delft, that holds the potential to transform the production method of life-saving pharmaceuticals. Our focus lies on producing heparin-like compounds as heparin is the world’s most commonly used anticoagulant, administered to 1 in 3 hospitalized patients. Despite attempts to produce heparin synthetically, heparin is still derived as a by-product of pig intestines and therefore holds many security and stability risks including; epidemics, contamination crises, and dependency on China for more than 80 % of production. These factors together with our increasingly aging population and prevalence of chronic diseases have placed heparin on the US FDA Drug Shortage list since 2017. A solution to this challenge is urgently needed and ExCulture is committed to working on future-proofing the heparin supply chain.