Cyprus’s biotechnology sector remains small by European standards, but it has been building gradually over the past decade: a handful of specialised, research-driven companies, a growing base of domestic investors willing to back early-stage science, and university ties that feed talent and research into the sector. A new agreement between Medochemie Ltd, the country’s largest pharmaceutical manufacturer, and Theramir Ltd, a Limassol-based biotechnology company, adds a further example to that pattern..
Announced on 2 September 2026, the strategic investment and collaboration agreement brings together Medochemie’s manufacturing experience with Theramir’s work on extracellular vesicle and microRNA-based therapeutics. Under the agreement, the companies will jointly support the development of Good Manufacturing Practice capabilities for Theramir’s next-generation biological therapies and their progression toward clinical development..
A Cyprus-grown biotech platform. Theramir was founded in 2016 by a team that included Dr Marianna Prokopi-Demetriades, who remains a co-founder of the company. Its research centres on what it calls its EVmiR platform: stem-cell-derived extracellular vesicles engineered to deliver customised microRNA sequences, short, non-coding RNA molecules that regulate genes and biological pathways linked to cancer growth and metastasis, directly to solid tumours while reducing exposure to healthy tissue..
The company’s path so far reflects the incremental way early-stage biotechnology has developed in Cyprus. In April 2023, Theramir closed a funding round of €1.2 million from two Cyprus-based investors, ASBIS Enterprises and Lanitis Group, as it worked toward completing preclinical development of its lead candidate.
That the round was funded domestically, rather than through international venture capital, points to a growing willingness among Cyprus-based investors to back biotechnology at an early stage, well before a clear path to clinical trials or commercial return exists.. Theramir’s work has also drawn on public research funding.
The company coordinates MiRACULOUS, a research programme, led by Dr Prokopi-Demetriades, that applies the same underlying extracellular-vesicle and microRNA science to malignant wounds in cancer patients, developed alongside Promed Bioscience, RSL Revolutionary Labs and VetEx Machina. The programme received a €200,000 grant over two years from Cyprus’s Research and Innovation Foundation, funded through the RESTART programme and the EU’s NextGenerationEU initiative, illustrating how national and European funding bodies, alongside private investors, have already had a hand in building the science behind Theramir’s platform..
An established manufacturer joins the story. Medochemie, founded nearly five decades ago, has grown into Cyprus’s largest pharmaceutical company, operating 15 production facilities across Cyprus, the Netherlands and Vietnam, and exporting medicines to 122 countries. Its core business has been generic medicines, manufactured to EU Good Manufacturing Practice standards.
The company also participates in the EU’s Critical Medicines Alliance, a consultative platform established in January 2024 to address pharmaceutical supply chain vulnerabilities across Europe, through Andreas Loizou, its Group Business Development Director, an indication of the company’s existing standing in wider European pharmaceutical policy discussions. Separately, Medochemie has supported educational partnerships with the University of Cyprus, part of a recurring pattern of established Cyprus companies engaging with the country’s research institutions..
The Theramir agreement marks a different kind of undertaking for Medochemie. Rather than manufacturing established generic medicines, the company is applying its manufacturing and regulatory experience to an earlier-stage, more experimental category of biological therapy.. Keeping development closer to home.
For a company like Theramir, access to a manufacturing partner based in the same country carries particular significance. Developing a therapeutic platform toward clinical trials typically requires GMP-certified production capacity, quality management systems and regulatory expertise, resources that few early-stage biotechnology companies, in Cyprus or elsewhere, have the means to build independently.
Partnering with an established, Cyprus-based manufacturer means Theramir does not need to look outside the country for that capability, at least at this stage of its development. Medochemie’s own facilities extend beyond Cyprus, including a production site in the Netherlands, but the agreement itself was struck between two companies headquartered in the same small market, a detail that distinguishes it from the cross-border manufacturing partnerships more commonly seen in the pharmaceutical industry..
Both companies describe the agreement as a mutual one rather than a one-sided transaction. Medochemie’s manufacturing infrastructure and regulatory experience are paired with Theramir’s therapeutic platform, with each company said to bring complementary strengths to the collaboration and Theramir’s wider research programme also standing to benefit..
Company perspectives. “We believe this collaboration marks an important milestone, not only for Medochemie but for the broader biotechnology landscape in Cyprus,” said Daphne Pittas, Member of the Board of Directors of Medochemie. “Theramir’s pioneering work in extracellular vesicle and miRNA-based therapeutics represents exactly the kind of high-potential science that our manufacturing expertise, international reach and regulatory experience can help bring closer to patients.
By combining our strengths, we are investing not only in a promising technology platform, but in the future of advanced biomanufacturing in Cyprus, and in the country’s ability to compete on the international biotechnology stage.”. Dr Marianna Prokopi-Demetriades, co-founder of Theramir, said the collaboration reflected what two Cyprus-based companies could achieve together.
“Moving an innovative therapeutic technology from the laboratory towards patients requires not only strong science, but also the right manufacturing, pharmaceutical and regulatory expertise,” she said. “This collaboration brings these elements together and represents a major step towards translating our extracellular vesicle platform into clinical applications.
As the future of medicine increasingly moves towards biologics and advanced therapeutics, we are particularly proud that two Cyprus-based companies can combine their expertise to strengthen internationally competitive biotechnology and biomanufacturing from Cyprus.”. A small sector, building incrementally.
Cyprus’s biotechnology sector remains modest in scale compared with larger European hubs, and a single partnership does not change that on its own. But the pattern this agreement fits into, a locally founded biotech reaching a stage where it needs manufacturing capacity, and finding that capacity within the country rather than abroad, is one that, repeated often enough, is how smaller biotechnology sectors gradually build up..
The companies describe the agreement as intended to strengthen Cyprus’s biotechnology infrastructure and expand local capacity in next-generation biomanufacturing, positioning the country as an emerging option for south-eastern Europe and international markets, a characterisation that reflects the companies’ own stated ambitions for the collaboration rather than an independent assessment of Cyprus’s standing.. Whether Theramir’s platform progresses to clinical trials, and on what timeline, remains to be seen; both companies describe the collaboration as still in its early stages.
What the agreement demonstrates in the meantime is a mechanism increasingly present in Cyprus’s small biotechnology sector: an established manufacturer and an early-stage research company finding, within the same small country, the combination of capabilities that each needs to move forward.. For Theramir, that means a manufacturing and regulatory partner it did not have to look abroad to find.
For Medochemie, it means a first step into a category of medicine, biological therapeutics built on extracellular vesicles and RNA, that sits well beyond the generic medicines that have defined the company’s business for nearly five decades.. Cyprus’s biotechnology sector has, until now, been defined largely by companies like Theramir working at a research stage, supported by a mix of domestic investment and public grants rather than by large-scale manufacturing deals.
Whether the Medochemie-Theramir agreement becomes a template for how other Cyprus-based biotechs eventually scale up, or remains a single example, will depend on what both companies report as the collaboration progresses through GMP development and toward Theramir’s own clinical milestones.. Tags: trends
