Objective
Osteoarthritis is the fastest growing cause of disability worldwide. Still, there is currently no drug available that targets the underlying pathophysiology of osteoarthritis. Clinical trials testing disease-modifying drug candidates consistently fail. This is because osteoarthritis is a complex disease and currently used drug development tools completely disregard patient variability. Consequently, such non-personalised drugs fail to reach high enough response rates in highly variable osteoarthritis patient populations. O-POINTED is the first tool to enable pharma and biotech companies to personalise the osteoarthritis drug development process. O-POINTED is a cellular test system based on personalised and expandable cell lines generated from a cohort of more than 50 osteoarthritis patients. It represents osteoarthritis patient variability including all the main disease phenotypes (bone-, cartilage-, synovium-driven). Compared to conventional test systems, it is easier to use and more relevant, with the unique benefit of representing osteoarthritis patient variability. The combined O-POINTED business model includes a double one-off revenue (product plus consumables) and recurring revenue (milestone-based payments). We estimate that O-POINTED will create €2.9 million revenue and 15 new jobs, 3 years after commercial launch. We have a key customer already testing a minimal viable product of O-POINTED and seek Phase 1 support to evaluate the feasibility of scaling up to a European and Global dimension.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
38124 Braunschweig
Germany
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.