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Personalized, bio-engineered skin grafts for the permanent treatment of skin defects.

Project description

Innovative bioengineered skin grafts for transplantation

Standard of care split-thickness skin autografting procedure for the treatment of skin wounds often leaves patients with scars. After transplantation, the lack of dermis in the transplant induces a quick body reaction to create scar tissue and activate contraction to reduce the wound area. Contraction is characterised by skin constriction that results in additional scarring and functional limitations. The Swiss company CUTISS invented and developed personalised, bioengineered human skin graft technology to produce large quantities originating from a stamp-sized skin biopsy of the patient. The dermo-epidermal structure of the novel autografts will result in minimal scarring after transplantation. The EU-funded denovoSkin project aims to finalise a development plan in regards to the clinical validation of the product and its industrialisation.

Objective

Every year in the world, more than 50M patients suffer from skin defects (e.g. burns, excision, etc.) and need surgical intervention to restore skin function. Standard of care, skin autografting, very often leaves these patients with scars. Scars are permanent and disfiguring, and can also be painful and highly debilitating. Indeed, they may also impair movement and growth, and require several follow-up surgeries, intense homecare and psychosocial rehabilitation. Hence, scars significantly affect patient’s quality of life, along with the economic burden for the health-care system. Furthermore, in the case of large wounds, donor site shortage represents a real clinical issue. denovoSkin™ is a patented, personalized, bio-engineered human skin graft classified as Advanced Therapy Medical Product (ATMP). It is engineered in large quantities starting-off from a stamp-sized skin biopsy of the patient, thus solving the donor site shortage issue. Moreover, because of its dermo-epidermal structure, denovoSkin is expected to minimally scar after transplantation. Its outstanding performance could considerably reduce or even avoids further corrective interventions, allowing for considerable savings in terms of costs. denovoSkin™ is granted with Orphan Drug Designation for the treatment of burns by Swissmedic, EMA and FDA. So far, more than €14M have been invested over the last 16 years of research into the development and the clinical testing of denovoSkin™. To have denovoSkin™ fully projected at a European and global level we need a further investment of €3.57M to set up a solid EU value chain able to meet the large demand expected during the commercialisation via developing the automation of manufacture. The proposed work in Phase 1 of the SME instrument fits into our overall plan to reach the market by contributing the financial resources needed to plan a fast sound wider deployment of denovoSkin™ and its market uptake.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-SMEInst-2016-2017

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Coordinator

CUTISS AG
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 50 000,00
Address
WEINBERGSTRASSE 35 WYSS TRANSLATIONAL CENTER ZURICH DENOVOS
8006 Zurich
Switzerland

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SME

The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.

Yes
Region
Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera Zürich Zürich
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 71 429,00
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