ELDICO ED, Shaping the Future of Crystallography - The First Pure Electron Diffraction Equipment for Nano-Crystallography

Project Information

ELDICO ED

Grant agreement ID: 889359

DOI

10.3030/889359

Project closed

EC signature date 19 November 2019

Start date 1 December 2019

End date 31 March 2020

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

ELDICO SCIENTIFIC AG
Switzerland

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ELDICO ED (ELDICO ED, Shaping the Future of Crystallography - The First Pure Electron Diffraction Equipment for Nano-Crystallography)

Reporting period: 2019-12-01 to 2020-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Our company is working on a revolutionary instrument, ELDICO ED®, to provide fast and accurate structural elucidation of nanocrystals.
Currently, the gold standard technique is X-ray diffraction, but it has several limitations: it is unprecise, time consuming and is not able to analyze small crystals. As consequence pharmaceutical companies need to invest large time, staff and budget in crystallization reducing their possibilities to discover new drugs.
Electron diffraction is an alternative since it can measure nanocrystals in the range of 100 nm, however, there is no commercial equipment dedicated exclusively to electron diffraction. Instead, Transmission Electron Microscopes (TEMs) are used, which are excellent for imaging purposes, but poor in diffraction and probe handling, and very expensive.
We aim to improve our prototype, produced by reconfiguration of a TEM, and offer an instrument easy to use, showing results in an easy to interpret way at a competitive price.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

We have planned the next steps to follow to develop ELDICO ED® next generation: 1) to improve the technological configuration of the prototype, 2) to plan the scale-up the production process, 3) to validate the performance, and 4) to reconfigure ELDICO ED® to be used for quality control.
We will need to invest €2 Mn to carry out these activities, 70% of it will be covered by the EU, 27% by external investors and 3% by own funds coming from ongoing pilot equipment sales.
To be able to commercialize ELDICO ED® after the Accelerator project we will communicate the benefits of our instrument, to reach potential customers and apply for the certifications required. These activities will be covered by external investors.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The lack of a precise technology for nanostructure determination drives the high failure rates to bring medicines in an experimental development to the market. The main reason is the inaccurate identification of the target and the potential medicine in the first stages of the drug discovery. As a result, although pharma companies are investing a lot of time and budget on research many medical needs remain uncovered.
Our company has invented a new instrument to elucidate the structure of crystals in the range of 100 nm, which will allow companies opening the range of molecules that they can discover in a faster and lower cost way.
This innovation will bring a high impact on our company. In 3-years after product development, we expect to sell 110 devices which will bring an accumulative profit of 65,9 Mn, an ROI of 28, and will allow us hiring 12-15 new employees.

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