High quality large scale fabrication of cellular scaffolds, with three-dimensional (3D) resolution comparable to cell size, is an important task to enable regenerative medicine applications with stem cells. We are using two-photon polymerization to produce our stem cell culture substrate called Nichoid, which we already demonstrated capable of stimulating cell proliferation while maintaining cell stemness, without the need of dangerous additives. Parallelization of this technique was achieved within this project, with the use of a spatial light modulator: the results were obtained by combining this device with fast linear stages to produce Nichoid-covered substrates of few squared centimeters in size.
The main outcomes of the market analysis for the Nichoid substrate are shortly described hereon. Due to a growing demand pushed by the increase registered in diseases, the new technological advancements and the private and public resources, the 3D cell market is estimated to expand rapidly (it is expected to reach $ 1,720.3 M by 2022 from the $ 682,8 M in 2017, at a CAGR of 20,3%, especially the scaffold-based segment that is the fastest growing). The same trend is followed by the solid scaffolds segment (our reference domain) that is expected to account for 14.8% of the scaffold-based 3D cell culture market with USD 115.0 million by 2022 from USD 51.1 million accounted in 2017, at a CAGR of 17.6%, led by their application in engineering vascular, cartilage, ligament, skin, neural, and skeletal muscle tissues. The industry is fragmented although the top 5 companies own over the 85% of the market. Small entities should invest a lot to prove the commercial applications of their new solutions to ensure a wide user acceptance, a conditio-sine-qua non for being acquired by large entities.
Based on the current maturity level of the technology, in the near future (1-2 years), it is expected that the Nichoid will glimpse interesting perspectives (to be further validated in the next steps) for the cell therapy, tissue engineering, drug discovery and in-vitro testing, also thanks to the integration with other cell culture systems and for the differentiation of iPSCs.
