Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DELOX (Next generation decontamination: fast, effective, cheap and non-toxic)
Reporting period: 2019-01-01 to 2019-06-30
Hospital-acquired infections affect as high as 1 in every 5 patients in intensive care units while the pharmaceutical industry facilities lose approximately $1 billion in revenue every month due to contaminations. But hospitals are not alone in aggravating the risk of contaminations. Food poisoning causes 300,000 hospitalizations and 5000 deaths in the US alone while the financial impact for the food industry can reach up to $7 billion yearly.
Delox has the potential to drastically improve these numbers as an automatic bio-decontamination system for everyone, everywhere.
Sterilization is perhaps the most common method for the decontamination process but as a relatively expensive procedure, it is typically only affordable for very large hospitals in well-developed countries or outsourced to specialized firms. As a more price competitive alternative, the toxic Formaldehyde is mainly used for laboratory and health sector equipment, urging for a quick and affordable alternative.
The state-of-the-art for sterilization technology is VHP (Vaporized Hydrogen Peroxide) which is expensive and energy intensive, as it requires heating Hydrogen Peroxide to 130°C. Our patented formulation – dryVHP – developed through 5 years of research at the University of Lisbon, differs by needing to heat up to only 60°C to produce the same effect and by being compact, non-toxic and significantly cheaper.
We have identified the laboratory equipment market as our immediate entry-point while the future Delox version will be able to address the wider hospital, clinics and food sectors.
With significant interest from several large industry stakeholders, and through awards and recognition, we are confident that our solution has the potential to disrupt the bio-decontamination and sterilization market while eliminating the need for costly and toxic solutions.
Delox has the potential to drastically improve these numbers as an automatic bio-decontamination system for everyone, everywhere.
Sterilization is perhaps the most common method for the decontamination process but as a relatively expensive procedure, it is typically only affordable for very large hospitals in well-developed countries or outsourced to specialized firms. As a more price competitive alternative, the toxic Formaldehyde is mainly used for laboratory and health sector equipment, urging for a quick and affordable alternative.
The state-of-the-art for sterilization technology is VHP (Vaporized Hydrogen Peroxide) which is expensive and energy intensive, as it requires heating Hydrogen Peroxide to 130°C. Our patented formulation – dryVHP – developed through 5 years of research at the University of Lisbon, differs by needing to heat up to only 60°C to produce the same effect and by being compact, non-toxic and significantly cheaper.
We have identified the laboratory equipment market as our immediate entry-point while the future Delox version will be able to address the wider hospital, clinics and food sectors.
With significant interest from several large industry stakeholders, and through awards and recognition, we are confident that our solution has the potential to disrupt the bio-decontamination and sterilization market while eliminating the need for costly and toxic solutions.
The work that has been completed during this period covered by the report is summarized in the following bullets:
• We executed a comprehensive market assessment of hypothesis and assumptions combined with an analysis of environmental forces, market trends, competition and market entry obstacles, risks, opportunities and comprising our resources and constraints.
• We have identified our end-users and potential clients, which are essential to analyse the current market trends.
• We have studied which countries are much more mature than others regarding the use of this technology in the global sterilization equipment market.
• We have identified the further steps for the development of Delox as ready-to-go to the market bio-decontamination device.
• We defined a realistic and attainable work program to ensure that all the objectives are met, focusing our attention on specific technical and commercial obstacles that could present limitations to our market introduction.
• We executed a comprehensive market assessment of hypothesis and assumptions combined with an analysis of environmental forces, market trends, competition and market entry obstacles, risks, opportunities and comprising our resources and constraints.
• We have identified our end-users and potential clients, which are essential to analyse the current market trends.
• We have studied which countries are much more mature than others regarding the use of this technology in the global sterilization equipment market.
• We have identified the further steps for the development of Delox as ready-to-go to the market bio-decontamination device.
• We defined a realistic and attainable work program to ensure that all the objectives are met, focusing our attention on specific technical and commercial obstacles that could present limitations to our market introduction.
With a direct vision to revolutionize the sterilization market, we are working on increasing the annual production and bio-decontamination capacities of Delox in order to expand our reach to room bio-decontamination but also niche markets like biodefense, aerospace, biopharmaceuticals sterilization or other pharmacological applications. Through our successful partnerships with national and European hospitals we will continue running pilots and work ceaselessly towards the commercialisation of our solution.