About e-Zyvec

e-Zyvec is a biotech start-up specialized in genetic engineering.
We provide biologists and genetic researchers with sophisticated tailor-made vectors.

Founded in October 2016 by Carine, Sylvain and Geoffroy, e-Zyvec is a Biotech company devised by scientists to serve scientists. Rather to provide another service of ‘customized’ DNA molecules to biologists, we aim to offer an efficient and innovative partnership in genetic engineering projects. This results in uniquely designed DNA vectors that will truly enhance Life Science research.

Our story started in 2013 in a research lab (UMR 8576 UGSF) at the University of Lille, when Geoffroy solved Sylvain’s 3-month-old cloning problem in 10 days. To easily create the 6 sophisticated DNA vectors Sylvain had designed for his research on cancer, Geoffroy used an innovative DNA assembly method that he had devised for his own studies on yeast that had required more than 100 standard, but individual, DNA vectors.

We realised we held in our hands a versatile method to easily design and generate tailor-made vectors fitting the exact requirements of any biologist’s project

Working alongside other scientists, we were aware that our teams were not the only ones suffering from a lack of availability of tailor-made vectors. We were not alone in spending months building the specific vectors required for our experiments.
We realised our technology could boost research by allowing a swift distribution of better-suited, more efficient molecular tools compared with traditional methods. Since then, we have made it our goal to contribute to the acceleration of progress in Life Sciences.

To do so, we had to find a way to efficiently make this method available to others, and the best way to do this was to create a company.
We started to project ourselves as entrepreneurs and to imagine a company that would become e-Zyvec. We envisaged a service company that would be dedicated to providing biologists around the world with the most efficient molecular tools.

From 2014 to 2016, we were fostered by Eurasanté, Lille’s Life Sciences incubator initiative, to build up the e-Zyvec project by covering the business aspects. We also worked bench-side with the support of SATT Nord, the local Technology Transfer Office (TTO), to strengthen the technology and realise irrefutable Proofs of Concept (POC). This is when Carine joined the project to be instrumental in the process of patenting our DNA assembly technology.

Our first mission was to successfully upgrade Geoffroy’s method into a robust technology.