The ACOFORS project yielded a positive outcome. It showed that there is a clear market potential for the AFS technology that can manipulate single molecules and cells in a highly parallel manner. This new methodology enables the measurement of biological relevant molecular interactions and study the mechanotransduction and mechanosensing of cells. A top-down and bottom-up market assessment revealed that the direct addressable specialized single molecule research market of AFS lies around the 10 million euros per year. A future potential market that could be served by general easy-to-use versions of the AFS product that are optimized for a dedicated application is potentially a tenfold larger than the specialized market.
A voice of customer that was conducted under opinion leaders in the specialized single molecule research field yielded as outcome that the academic version of the AFS would meet the requirements of the majority of the users in this market. Furthermore, it was clear that both a standalone instrument as a bolt-on system that could be used on a (commercial) inverted microscope were interesting for the users.
As a result of the voice of customer it was decided to go-to-market quickly with the AFS meeting the minimum requirements of the academic prototype. Both an AFS standalone product as an AFS module (bolt-on product that was developed outside the scope of the ERC ACOFORS project) were developed.
Currently several systems are in the field as a result of the ACOFORS project and a solid pipeline has been created to sustain a healthy product and business for the longer term.
