Category: Projects

Polish National Centre for Research and Development launched the third edition of their BRIdge Alfa program. Within this program, private investors can obtain funding that will later be invested in small enterprises, especially in research and development projects. The budget of this edition of BRIdge Alfa reached an astounding sum of 1 billion PLN.

The program aims to support innovative R&D projects at early stages of their development, especially during the preseed phase. It’s not a surprise that private investors are often reluctant to finance projects at this stage. The funding offered by NCBR (so-called proof of concept funding) decreases risks, allowing researchers to work on their projects with a constant financial support for a period of up to 5 years. Neither NCBR nor participating investors claim rights to the companies or patents obtained by the project team.

SDS Optic was granted from PARP Go to Brand programme for inPROBE promotion actions on foreign markets. Main aim of this grant is supporting promotion and internationalization inPROBE project.

Each of the Go To Brand payee has a promotion funding programme which indicates specific events (usually trade shows) at non-EU markets, where companies may promote their products. Individual promotional activities are thus linked with the national strategy of building repute and prestige of the Polish economy brand abroad.

The Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP) is involved in the implementation of national and international programmes financed from the EU structural funds, state budget and multiannual programmes of the European Commission. As a key authority responsible for creating a business-friendly environment in Poland, PARP contributes to the creation and effective implementation of the state policy related to enterprise, innovation and staff adaptability. Pursuant to the principle “Think Small First”, in all its activities the Agency puts a particular emphasis on the needs of the SME sector.

The Programme intends to face challenges of ageing society, the higher incidence of chronic diseases and in the end, to deal with the issue of rising medical service costs.

The key objective of the Programme is to achieve a significant progress in the treatment of civilization diseases and regenerative medicine on the basis of results achieved from research and development activities conducted in the following areas:

1. Cardiology and cardiac surgery
2. Oncology
3. Neurology and senses
4. Regenerative medicine

The Programme is to stimulate the innovation and competitiveness of Polish economy, particularly in biotechnology, biomedical engineering areas, by means of projects oriented to development and implementation of new methods used in the areas of: prevention, diagnosis, medical treatment and rehabilitation.  

Moreover, STRATEGMED will strengthen the international competitive position of Poland in the following areas: research and development activities in the scientific fields related to STRATEGMED, involvement of dynamic international teams of young researches and finally, know-how and new technologies transfer to the Polish economy.

The aim of the program is to subsidize the activities of scientific entities and entrepreneurs for applying for a European and international patent protection for acquired by them as the results of research or development.

SDS Optic was granted by National Centre of Research and Development in Patent Plus programme.

The European Commission has contributed to SDS Optic’s project “Revolutionary opto-biological methodology for aggressive HER2 cancer”. The startup from Lublin was granted €3.985.000 from the SME Instrument (Horizon 2020) programme to develop a revolutionary optical device OmiProbe for safe, fast and non-destructive cancer diagnosis.

As part of the Horizon 2020 programme, the European Commission is hand-picking potentially disruptive businesses to invest and support as part of the SME Instrument. In the latest phase (June 2017), 1514 projects applied for the financial support and only 57 (2 from Poland) got funding. The grant for SDS Optic is so far the largest for the polish company and also the largest in this phase of the programme. It will finance optimisation of the SDS-OmiProbe device, independent clinical trials, certification and commercialisation.

SDS Optic designed a revolutionary opto-biological methodology that allows for instant cellular processes studies including in-vivo cancer diagnosis with single-cell resolution. SDS inProbe detects presence and measures concentration levels of the HER+ cancer cells in breast tumours. It is a breakthrough device that carries the potential to address the challenges of SoA cancer markers diagnosis and biopsies. In essence, it is a laboratory test at the tip of a probe, but with greater accuracy, efficacy and quantitative results. SDS-OmiProbe may also be used as a companion diagnostic tool for targeted therapy and targeted therapy drugs.

According to World Health Organization, cancer is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, with approximately 14 million new cases per year. Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women and is considered the second most common cancer overall. Each year about 1.7 million new cases are diagnosed worldwide and over 500,000 women die from the disease. Current diagnosis methods of cancers fail to deliver objective results. Diagnosis requires extracting tissue samples via invasive and expensive biopsy, followed by laboratory analysis, which is subject to significant levels of discordance. Thanks to SDS-OmiProbe, the accurate result of the same analysis will be achievable in a few minutes. It will spare the patient’s pain and stress connected with biopsy and waiting for the results. It is planned that the first patients will be diagnosed using SDS inProbe in 2021.

Visit official website: https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en