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NattoPharma (Oslo, Norway), supplier of the branded MenaQ7 vitamin K2 ingredient, announced that the company’s NattoPharma International Research Network has received a €4 million grant from the European Commission’s research program, Horizon 2020, to study vitamin K2’s role in vascular health.
“Horizon 2020 grants are the European equivalent to a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant here in the United States,” said NattoPharma’s chief medical officer, Hogne Vik, in a press release.
According to NattoPharma, this funding “will provide training in innovative therapeutic strategies that include MenaQ7, identifying selective targets for microvascular calcification, and its consequences for plaque stability, and provide subsequent strategies for prevention or amelioration of vulnerable plaque formation.”
The NattoPharma International Research Network is coordinated by the Cardiovascular Research Institute at Maastrich University (CARIM). The grant, named INTRICARE, or “International Network for Training on Risks of Vascular Intimal Calcification and Roads to Regression of Cardiovascular Disease,” will fund a consortium made up of three highly ranked research university departments—CARIM, Universitätsklinikum Aachen, Karolinska Institutet Stockholm, and King’s College London—as well as 9 small- and medium-sized enterprises, including NattoPharma.