Project description
A simple suppressor of cell death could prolong donor organ viability for transplants
Donated blood can be refrigerated and stored for weeks but donated organs are another story. These complex 3D tissue systems are nurtured by continuous blood supply in vivo, to deliver oxygen and nutrients and remove waste and toxins. Once removed from their natural environment, necrosis (unprogrammed cell death) can set in. Currently, static cold storage is the standard method for organ preservation. However, prolonged cold storage has negative outcomes and solutions are desperately needed. ELAPHARMA has identified molecular inhibitors of necrosis. Treatment of the donor organ prior to transportation and transplantation enables suppression of necrosis for up to 24 hours, and significantly enhanced viability thereafter. It promises to give new hope to millions of people on wait lists.
Objective
One of the most important advances in organ transplantation has been the development of preservation procedures resulting in high quality and efficacy of organ supply and operations. However, current methods used to preserve organs are limited to a very short period of time (i.e. less than 24h). And insufficient organ preservation capabilities place important logistical limitation to organ donation which place several constraints on the distance that can be travelled to recover donor transplant. With such supply constraints, a great many of organs are wasted meanwhile, only 10 % of people on the waiting list received an organ and 18 people on waiting lists die every day across Europe due to the shortage of available organs. Overcoming the logistical constraints is an necessity to increase the availability of organs for donation by increasing the delivering area, reducing organ shortage and saving more lives.
To address the unresolved challenge ElaPharma has come with a new solution: A small additive molecules inhibiting an intracellular enzyme involved in organ necrosis processes during preservation. Intended for the flushing of organs at the time of organ removal from the donor in preparation for storage and transportation, ElaPharma anti-necrosis agent successfully maintain any organs for up to 24h suppressing all the supply constraints to organ replacement. Besides, after the 24h, organs preserved with ElaPharma have 8x higher cellular viability providing better patient outcomes and remission after transplantation. ElaPharma implementation will results in more lifesaving significantly increasing the organ delivering area, saving life by providing more transplantations. We expect to acquire 40% of the European market (i.e. 13 500 transplantations) and 7% of the US market (i.e. 2500 transplantations) by 2026. With this market shares we will reach €50.4 million revenues in 2026, with €20.37 million profit (ROI of 7.2). And we foresee to create 20 new jobs by 2026.
Fields of science
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacydrug discovery
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicinesurgery
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineophthalmology
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicineneurologystroke
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicinetransplantation
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
6936049 TEL AVIV
Israel
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.