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The Next-Generation of Small, Cost-Effective and Mobile Brain Scanner for an Early Detection of Alzheimer’s Disease

Project description

A portable brain scanner for Alzheimer's disease diagnosis

Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) takes place via positron emission tomography (PET), a multi-modal method that measures specific AD parameters. However, PET scanners are whole-body instruments, take up a lot of space and are expensive to acquire and maintain. The EU-funded BPET project has developed an ultra-compact brain scanner that has significantly fewer operational expenses and much higher operating capacity. It is expected to assist in the detection of AD at an early stage and the adoption of the best treatment. BPET has undertaken the necessary steps for the next phase of clinical validation, industrial adaptation and commercialisation of the scanner.

Objective

Alzheimer’s (AD) is a global epidemic with 50 M people suffering it and 76 M expected by 2030 (related costs near $1 Tri in 2018). To diminish its burden, an early detection is crucial, specially when modifying treatments become available. The most accurate method to measure AD hallmarks is positron emission tomography (PET), but current PET scanners are multi-modal, whole-body, room-filling, expensive to acquire (€1-5 M) and not commonly used. Thus, there is still a need for more efficient diagnostic tools to detect AD at an early stage to adopt the best live-lasting treatment.
Positrigo is a Swiss start-up, founded with the goal of provide an efficient PET tool for the early diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases. Our technology has enabled us to develop a first prototype of BPET which has been preliminary tested in the laboratory with high performance. BPET is a dedicated mobile brain scanner with the size of a drying hood, 10x less capital (€400 k instead of millions) and 5x less operational expenses than current scanners. It will greatly improve early diagnosis of AD, facilitate its treatment follow-up and contribute to accelerate drug development programs, with a 10x increase in scanning capacity.
BPET can be sold to hospitals and clinical research organizations, tailored to the needs of patients and doctors, and it can enable new case uses of brain PET (e.g many scanners used in parallel, wider populations, in larger cohort research studies). Diverse hospitals have shown their interest in BPET and their support for its complete development for its potential applications and impact.
To launch BPET in the healthcare market we need its CE marking, clinical validation and industrial adaptation, so a total of €2.5M for phase 2 will be requested. BPET project will pave the way for our company to be established as an innovative alternative in scanner-based diagnosis, boosting our company to grow and reach around €30 M profits and a ROI of 7.4 after 5 years.

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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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-EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020

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Coordinator

POSITRIGO 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
TECHNOPARKSTRASSE 1
8005 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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