Project description
Suspended but animated: A novel bioreactor supports competitive large-scale cell culture
Bioreactors, technically just vessels in which biological reactions take place, have filled an important need when it comes to aerobic cell culturing. Cell culturing is itself an important enabler of experiments supporting areas such as drug development and tissue engineering. Conventional manual labour-intensive methods for cell culturing are an important bottleneck to speedy and cost-effective results. The Italian SME BioCom - Biomedical Components has developed a novel dynamic suspension bioreactor for large-scale culture that eliminates the moving parts in other bioreactors that damage cells and add cost and complexity. EU funding of the SUSPENCE project will help the team optimise its technology and prepare for a market launch.
Objective
Large-scale production of cells is essential for basic research, disease modelling and drug testing. However, scalability and standardization in cellular manufacturing are still major challenges: when large numbers of cells are required, conventional two-dimensional (2D) culture strategies, mainly based on manual, space- and labour-intensive interventions, are practically and financially unsustainable. Dynamic suspension allows large-scale production of cells, but current solutions on the market suffer from limitations in terms of cells damaging and potential contamination (stirred tank bioreactors) or high cost and complexity (rotating bioreactors). The SUSPENCE solution is a microgravity perfusion bioreactor, a highly innovative technological system that keeps cells in suspension in the culture chamber, allowing them to grow and reach maturity in dynamic conditions with no rotation mechanism or moving parts. SUSPENCE benefits have been confirmed by explanatory morphological and biological tests carried out on an in vitro cell culture. SUSPENCE advantages on competing solutions are: less cell damage, more easy-to-use, increased productivity, better monitoring and control and reduced operation costs. The design of SUSPENCE bioreactor is protected by an international patent application. The target users are research labs and red-biotech firms and; the market size has been estimated in over 6.000 potential customers in EU. Commercialization will start on the Italian market in 20 months from the start of the project, after pre-commercial pilots and industrialization, to expand on the EU market in 36 months and to reach the global market in month 48, after release of larger capacity devices. Forecast revenues are 9 M€/year in the 3rd year of commercialisation. The total financial requirement amounts to about 2.5 M€, with an IRR of 74%. SUSPENCE received thrice the “Seal of Excellence” by European Commission in 2018 (deadline of May, September, November).
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- engineering and technology mechanical engineering manufacturing engineering
- engineering and technology environmental biotechnology bioremediation bioreactors
- engineering and technology industrial biotechnology
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology lung cancer
- medical and health sciences medical biotechnology cells technologies stem cells
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.2.3. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.3. - PRIORITY 'Societal challenges
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H2020-EU.2.1. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies
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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.
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.
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.
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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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.
00196 ROMA
Italy
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
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.