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From left to right: André Guedes (CEO) and Rafael Porcar (CTO), co-founders of Droplite (Photo: Barcelona Science Park).
 05.12.2019

Droplite gets €236,000 from the Neotec programme and the European Commission’s Seal of Excellence

DROPLITE, a spin-off from the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) located in the Barcelona Science Park (PCB), has won a €236,000 grant from the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI) in the latest NEOTEC. The company has also earned the European Commission’s Seal of Excellence, which is awarded to start-ups that have first-class innovation ideas with great potential to open up new markets.

 

Biotech company DROPLITE has been awarded a €236,000 grant in the 2019 NEOTEC programme call funded by the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI). This capital injection will be used for the industrial development of its product, a medical smart testing device using photonic technology for rapid detection and quantification of a wide range of ailments, allergies and other health conditions at the clinical point of care (POC).

The technology developed by DROPLITE means all the stages usually carried out in a clinical testing laboratory can be integrated into a single miniaturised, smart and automated medical device based on the lab-on-a-chip concept. It is also connected to the cloud to deliver traceability and access to results anytime and anywhere. The disease agents in humans and animals are detected and monitored very precisely and in real time (less than 15 minutes) using a single drop of sample (blood, saliva, urine, etc.).

A total of 300 projects from all over Spain applied for this CDTI funding and only 96 of them were selected. “Our project was ranked 38th, which acknowledges our model of continuous development and investment in R&D&I,” said Rafael Porcar, CTO at DROPLITE. “This financial boost from the CDTI is also an important step forward for the company as it consolidates our resources and lays the foundation for our plans for the next two years.”

The company is currently completing technical and pre-clinical testing of the technology to kick off industrial design for manufacturing in 2020 and have a commercial version available by 2022.

European Commission’s Seal of Excellence 

This innovative project in rapid in-vitro medical diagnosis has also been rewarded by the European Commission with its prestigious (Seal of Excellence), a quality label awarded to ideas submitted to the European Innovation Council EIC AcceleratorPilot (the former SME Instrument Phase-2).

The Seal of Excellence is given to projects that have successfully met the strict selection criteria in an extremely competitive evaluation process involving a panel of independent international experts. In this call for proposals, the award accredits the innovation, quality and market potential of ideas which have been unable to obtain financial support due to budget constraints, but nevertheless deserve funding from alternative public or private domestic and international sources.

“Only 10–15% of the 1,850 start-ups submitted for this call have earned this coveted recognition,” pointed out André Guedes, CEO at DROPLITE. “This shows us that we are on the right track. Our solution appeals to EU experts because our technology and products are innovative, cater to market needs and have an efficient business model. This award also makes the company more attractive for investment since the Seal is a quality hashtag that identifies promising projects and recommends them for funding from alternative sources which may be public or private and domestic or international.”

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