Project description
New technology to improve dental implants
Taking a big bite out of dentures, the European dental implant market is growing steadily. Implants are artificial replacements of the tooth roots, anchored to a pre-drilled hold in the jawbone to hold a crown, bridge or full bridge. But failures still occur, inducing pain and increased costs. With this in mind, the EU-funded OsseoWave project will develop a medical device that will help surgeons to assess dental implant stability. This will help them to adapt their surgical strategy. Once the device is validated, the project will investigate its commercial potential and design a commercial exploitation strategy via spin-off creation or licensing of the technology. The originality of the approach is its use of quantitative ultrasound and a non-invasive, non-radiating technique, which is both portable and cheap.
Objective
Dental implants are widely used to replace missing teeth, with more than 4 000 000 implant surgery per year in Europe. Failures still occur because of a bad timing in the implant loading with the prosthesis, inducing pain and increased costs for dental surgeons. Although implant primary and secondary stability is the main determinant of the implant success, it remains difficult to be assessed in clinical practice.
OsseoWave is based on the results obtained in the ERC CoG project Boneimplant and aims at developing and validating a medical device consisting in a decision support-system allowing the surgeon to assess dental implant stability. Such medical device is needed by the clinicians in order to adapt their surgical strategy. The objective of OsseoWave is i) to achieve a minimum viable product (MVP) that will be validated in vitro and in vivo, and ii) to investigate its commercial potential and design a subsequent commercial exploitation strategy via spin-off creation or licensing of the technology. The originality of the approach is to use quantitative ultrasound, a non-invasive, non-radiating, portable and cheap technique, which constitute a technological rupture.
Regulatory issues will be at the heart of the development and we will work in order to clear the regulatory pathway of the future medical device. Post-OsseoWave, the MVP will be ready to go through CE marking application. The team is constituted by members with complementary skills (including engineers, a business developer and maxillofacial and veterinary surgeons experts in implantology).
OsseoWave will allow the promotion of innovative solution and services in dental implantology. The long-term vision is for the technology to become a reference in dental implant surgery. Strong impacts are associated to OsseoWave and in particular for the surgeons, the patients, the implant manufacturer, the technology and the economy.
Fields of science
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Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
ERC-POC - Proof of Concept GrantHost institution
75794 Paris
France