The Board of Directors meeting of July 7, 2025, formally approved the closure of the IRT BIOASTER and the dissolution of the Scientific Cooperation Foundation.
BIOASTER’s stakeholders—namely, the French Government, the industrial and academic founders—decided not to open a new round of funding, a prerequisite for the Institute’s continued operation.
Despite the scientific and technological value of a tool like BIOASTER, the stakeholders agreed on the project’s economic fragility.
The health microbiology and infectious diseases sector is struggling and cannot currently generate the collaborative research projects envisioned at the time of BIOASTER’s creation, making a public-private funding model in this field impossible. Market forecasts also do not allow for the development of a sufficiently effective recovery plan to postpone the decision.
Founded in 2012, and despite over 400 collaborative projects, 107 industrial partners, 27 patents, 33 internally developed technologies, and 100 employees, 80% of whom were highly qualified scientists, the Institute was unable to achieve the economic prospects compatible with the IRT (Institute for Technological Research) model.
Therefore, BIOASTER’s scientific journey has come to a definitive end. The process of dissolving the Scientific Cooperation Foundation has begun and will continue in 2026.
Thank you to all the partners, suppliers, and especially the employees who, for over 12 years, enabled us to offer a new force of applied research dedicated to technological innovation in microbiology, serving industry in the fields of diagnostics, vaccines, antimicrobials, and the microbiota!