Objective
Sepsis is a life-threatening illness caused by the body’s overreaction to an infection and can be triggered either directly by infection or may occur after medical treatment or surgery.The mortality rate in patients admitted to hospital with severe sepsis is 28-50% and it remains the most prevalent cause of death in non-coronary Intensive Care Units (ICUs ). It is estimated that in the US ~$17 billion were spent annually treating sepsis in patients and a similar amount is spent across the EU. To reduce costs and provide better treatment to patients, early, accurate diagnosis is critically important.
The CE-microArray project will utilize existing technology from clinical chemistry, microplate readers and cavity enhanced spectroscopy in a truly novel way to develop more sensitive, accurate, faster and more useful diagnostic platform.
The project consortium comprises experienced SMEs from across Europe who have developed the concept but do not have the capability to undertake the required Research and Development to produce working prototypes in preparation for commercialization. To do this they require funding to pay third party R&D specialists to undertake the R&D.
The project aims to produce a solution based on colorimetric detection that will be up to 100 times more sensitive, reducing the damage to patients with sepsis, allow sensitive and accurate detection of an increased range of biomarkers at lower cost and higher throughput. The market opportunity is estimated be greater than €1 billion and will bring a cumulative profit of ~€38 million to the SME consortium over 5 years.
Fields of science
Topic(s)
Call for proposal
FP7-SME-2013
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
BSG-SME - Research for SMEsCoordinator
TS1 3BA Middlesbrough
United Kingdom