Development of a non-invasive medical device to measure the skin biomechanical properties: assessment of the commercial feasibility

Introduction

Skin pathologies including wounds, scars, and tumors represent important public health issues. For example, melanoma is the first cancer in terms of increasing frequency. Moreover, skin firmness is an essential property aimed at by cosmetic products. However, skin assessment methods remain based on empirical considerations, and it is still difficult to determine the skin biomechanical properties, which prevents developing a personalized medicine approach.

Need for Medical Device

Such a medical device is needed by physicians to adapt the therapeutic strategy and by cosmetic manufacturers to develop and validate their products, proposing the optimal product in a customer-specific manner.

Project Overview

AssesSkin is based on results obtained in the ERC CoG project BoneImplant and aims at developing and validating a medical device consisting of a decision support system that allows for the assessment of skin biomechanical properties.

Objectives

The objectives of AssesSkin are:

1. To achieve a minimum viable product that will be validated in vitro and in vivo.
2. To investigate its commercial potential and design an exploitation strategy via spin-off creation or licensing.

We will explore the possibility of licensing the technology to ImpacTell, an already existing spin-off of the same laboratory. The originality lies in using an impact-based measurement method, which allows for a non-invasive, cheap, and easy-to-use medical device.

Regulatory Considerations

Regulatory issues will be at the heart of the development, and we will work to clear the regulatory pathway for the future medical device.

Team Composition

The team is constituted by members with complementary skills, including:

• Engineers
• A business developer
• A dermatologist
• A plastic surgeon

Impact and Vision

AssesSkin will allow the promotion of innovative solutions and services in dermatology, plastic surgery, and the cosmetic industry. The long-term vision is for the technology to become a reference in these fields. Strong impacts are associated with AssesSkin, particularly for patients, physicians, and cosmetic manufacturers.