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Revision as of 17:27, 2 October 2017
iGEM UPS-INSA Toulouse 2017
In order to achieve the most real entrepreneurship approach possible, we first met with some professionals to talk about our idea and to give us advice to better integrate our system into the cholera market. The people we get in touch with have knowledge in the areas of business creation, support for the creation of start-ups and about the daily life of villages affected by cholera. We also took into account the feelings of the western population in relation to our project.
Marc Lemonnier is the founding CEO of ANTABIO. This start-up, based at Labège (France) is a private biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapies to treat drug-resistant infections by the most critical Gram-negative pathogens.
To set up a business with his idea, you must be able to answer the problem of the “man in the street”. It is not easy to implement an advanced technology in the developing world. The device will have to be as user friendly as possible.
The steps to follow to ensure a permanent business are:
Pierre Monsan is the founding CEO of TWB (Toulouse White Biotechnology) and Véronique Paquet is the External Relations Director. This is a preindustrial demonstrator whose goal is to speed up the development of industrial biotechnology by facilitating exchanges between public research and industry. It contributes to the expansion of a bioeconomy based on the use of renewable carbon in the fields of chemistry, materials and energy.
We are proud to have submitted our project to TWB which is an entity helping many companies and research projects in their development. TWB is also one of our biggest sponsors, helping us to get the scientific equipment we needed during the iGEM competition to allow our project to start in the best possible conditions. They proposed us to get in touch with business developers, an ethicist and industrialists. Then, as part of the development of a start-up for our project, TWB could, for example, provide us premises and equipment.
Pierre-Alain Hoffmann is Deputy Director of CRITT Bio-Industries based in Toulouse. It is a center that connects research to industry in the field of biotechnological processes. They help to develop process projects or new products in the field of R&D and assist them from the concept to an industrial scale.
His knowledge and skills in companies' creation and development, and in the bioprocesses field, were helpful to consider our scientific concept as a potential commercial offer. Very enthusiastic about our idea detection and treatment of water system, he assured us that the market was reachable. He guided us in the establishment of a business plan worthy of a real start-up and helped us about the points that we had to consolidate in our approach. The regulatory aspect in relation to the commercialization of GMM is an essential point in our approach.
Christophe Campéri-Ginestet is the founding CEO of Sunwaterlife. Sunwaterlife is a French start-up located in Toulouse, designer of an innovative water purification system, including water contaminated with cholera. With the size of a suitcase and supplied by solar energy, it is an eco-friendly self-sustained solution, able to provide drinking water for schools, clinics, villages or in case of sanitary emergency in developing countries.
If we want to make a water detection and treatment device for the populations affected by cholera, it must be as simple as possible (transportable and with low maintenance) so that it is deployable on the ground. It has to resist to high temperatures because it is often high in the affected countries. If our system succeeds in properly filling these points, then it could be competitive with bleach, a widely used solution but which requires frequent maintenance not being stable at high temperatures.
In order to have opinions from people in the field, he put us in touch with UNICEF.
To help us to contain our microorganisms, a partnership with the company has been established so that they provide us with their membranes that filter bacteria and viruses. As a result, this collaboration with Sunwaterlife, which has a great expertise in the treatment of cholera-contaminated water, gives our system a certain weight of reliability.
Besides, he explained us that, compared to the solutions that already exist, the very advantageous point in our system is the ability to detect V. cholerae. Actually, the ways of detecting V. cholerae in water are long (several days) and the samples can not be analyzed in the field: they must be sent to an analysis laboratory.
Sunwaterlife has invested in our project to get our research work within iGEM in relation to the cholera detection module. By adapting it to its water filtration system, it could have a fast, reliable, sensitive, colored response and in live response about the water quality inlet and outlet.
In addition, we participated in the preparation of the application form for the status of "Jeune Entreprise Innovante" (which can be translated as "Young Innovative Company") for Sunwaterlife. This status is very popular among SMEs because, in exchange for an R&D investment of 15% of the tax-deductible expenses for the current year, the company benefits from tax concessions and exemptions from social contributions.
Therefore, this investment and collaboration between Sunwaterlife and our team enabled him to apply for a very interesting status for the start-up.
Claire Salvador is the responsible of the NGO MSF Midi-Pyrénées based in Toulouse. Created in 1971, Médecins Sans Frontières (or Doctors Without Borders) is a humanitarian association that provides medical assistance to populations in the event of armed conflicts, epidemics, pandemics, natural disasters, etc.
With her experience on the ground, Claire Salvador explained that the main problems of cholera are not in villages where the disease is endemic because the population knows perfectly the symptoms and water treatment facilities are increasingly installed. Moreover, countries affected by cholera hide tourists from epidemics to avoid scaring them. Our system should therefore not be aimed at the populations accustomed to this disease, nor to tourists. However, it would be interesting to adapt it to remote villages, which have difficulty access to the cholera camps and do not necessarily take the time to boil water before using it. The portable and simple aspects of our device are advantages.
Alama Keita works with UNICEF and is a cholera specialist. It moves between Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Democratic Republic of Congo to manage the cholera outbreaks. Created in 1946, the UNICEF or United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund is an agency of the United Nations that aims to improve the condition of children.
Creating a solution for remote villages is a great idea. The challenge is still to get a system with GMMs accepted by NGOs and villagers. NGOs must prove to their donors that they have total control over the products they use (both on the use and on the GMMs waste treatment), show their effectiveness, show that their costs remain reasonable, etc. Moreover, the treatment capacity of our device must be higher than 1 sachet per 1 liter. Indeed, for a village of 15 families with 7 people each, knowing that each person uses about 15 L of water per day, villagers need 11,025 L of water in a week. The use of 11,025 sachets per week is not suitable, especially from a waste management point of view.
The key to success would be to create a system independent of NGOs: they should not have to travel to these villages every day to bring our bags or to recover MMGs waste. For example, even if it requires maintenance, the advantage of bleach is that it leaves no waste. Villagers' information and product accessibility will be essential.
First of all, we would like to thank all those people we met. These exchanges helped us to identify the approach to be followed in order to create a business, the possible partners, and the cholera market in order to develop an application that is as appropriate as possible.
In order to start a business, you first need to have proof of concept, talk to scientific and non-scientific (marketing, ethics, communication, law, etc.) people about it in order to get other feedback and ideas, analyze the market through a business plan and not hesitate to see actors who are used to assist projects development such as TWB or the CRITT Bio-Industrie. We must not hide the negative points of our product and provide solutions.
Following discussions with cholera experts, we were advised to target those living in isolated villages. The device we will create must be simple, portable. and as independent as possible to NGOs. Ideally, villagers should manage the system from beginning to end, without assistance.
Thanks to all these feedbacks, we have been able to draw up a scope statement covering all the specific features our system must meet.
Testimonies
Marc Lemonnier
Who is he?
His advice?
Pierre Monsan and Véronique Paquet
Who are they?
Their advice?
Pierre-Alain Hoffmann
Who is he?
His advice?
Christophe Campéri-Ginestet
Who is he?
His advice?
Claire Salvador
Who is she?
Her advice?
Alama Keita
Who is he?
His advice?
Conclusion about the testimonies
