NEXTNANO · NEXT GENERATION NANOPARTICLE-BASED ANTIBACTERIAL TREATMENT FOR INFECTED WOUNDS

Every 5th person with diabetes develops chronic wounds that are frequently infected by bacteria. In 15−27 % cases bacterial wound infection leads to the gangrene that requires an amputation of the leg. 10 mln of amputations occur annually, showing that existing wound infection management treatments are inefficient.NEXTNANO aims to commercialize a new antibacterial nanotechology developed by our scientists and medical doctors to reduce the number of infection-related amputations by 20%. We showed in animals studies that our first product produced on the basis of this technology, an antibacterial wound dressing, is 8x times better than the current commercial best. Women TechEU grant would support the transition of our technology from the research and development stage to the commercialization stage. For that we have 4 Objectives: 1) To upgrade the commercialization strategy of our company; 2) To conduct the clinical assessment of our first product, antibacterial wound dressing; 3) To establish the quality management system (QMS) in our company and 4) To train participants. The main project results will be the improved commercialization strategy (including new contacts with the stakeholders), collaboration with the EU key opinion leaders and established QMS that will greatly increase the connectivity and competitiveness of our women-led deep-tech startup within innovation ecosystems of the EU. This will lead to more inclusive and gender equal innovation ecosystem in EU, since Estonia is one of the EU inclusiveness target countries and has one of the EU's highest inequalities between the salaries and top positions of women and men according to Eurostat. Not least, NEXTNANO will result in significant impacts: environmental (decreased use of antibiotics), societal (20% less amputations) and economical (10 mln eur revenue by 2026 and new high value-added jobs for 15 persons such as scientists, medical doctors, engineers and sales managers).