Exploring the market potential of photoporation as the next generation of intracellular delivery technology for the R&D and cell therapy markets

Delivering macromolecular compounds into living cells in vitro or ex vivo is a common requirement for both fundamental biological research as well as biomedical applications.

Examples include the intracellular delivery of gene editing molecules to unravel molecular pathways or to create engineered therapeutic cells.

Irrespective of the application, the common challenge is to combine efficient intracellular delivery with flexibility, high throughput and low cytotoxicity.

Photoporation, which combines laser irradiation with light-sensitive nanomaterials, is an upcoming physical intracellular delivery technology that offers these benefits.

Over several years of research in the principal investigator’s group, photoporation has proven its worth to deliver a variety of molecules into a broad range of cell types, including primary hard-to-transfect cells.

Offering high delivery efficiency, low cytotoxicity, single cell precision and minimal hands-on time, it holds great promise to become the next generation of intracellular delivery technologies.

Having developed prototype devices which already have been validated by several independent partners, the time has come to fully explore the technology's market potential.

The first aim of the INTRACYTE project is to further confirm interest from the academic and industrial R&D market by installing the technology at selected international Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) for an extensive validation in variety of topics.

The second aim is to explore the cell therapy market by initiating discussions with interested companies in order to fine-tune the technology’s value proposition and to define technical requirements for use in a cell production facility.

Thirdly, upscaling of nanomaterial production will be investigated, apart from the design of a low-cost bench-top photoporation instrument. Together this should lay the foundation bring this exciting new technology to the market within the next 12 months.