Darij Kreuh works in what could pass as the set for a film about a mad professor. There's a sort of dentist's chair contraption - but without the chair itself - clamps, rods, bits of bone, papers, computer screens, dangling wires connecting the bits together, and scientific-looking scribbling on a whiteboard behind it all.

But with his pink shirt, jeans and beard, Kreuh looks more like an ageing artist than professor. Which is, more or less, what he claims to be.

"I can't say I'm an inventor; I'm a conceptualist. I've been working 20 years in virtual reality simulation. I understand and know how to treat space," he says.

Kreuh, though, has been busy inventing, or rather, adapting inventions to new applications: more specifically, micro-navigation devices to the field of medicine.

So, when, two years ago, a friend told him of the difficulties that surgeons encounter when dealing with fractured bones in the arm or leg, he set about working on a new concept.

For, while many see fractured limbs as a 'routine' operation, in fact it still takes a good surgeon to do the job efficiently and holds risks for both doctor and patient from the X-rays used in the operations.

The "classical" system to fix a fracture is to drill a hole into one part of the bone, and join the two parts of the bone with a steel pin (a Kirschner pin) pushed through the medulla channel - the hollow part of the bone that normally contains the marrow. However, the pin must be anchored in the bone with a locking screw, and to correctly locate the position for this takes great experience, and a dose or three of X-rays.

"This is a very skilled job, and, though they won't admit it in public, in a team of eight or nine surgeons, only one will be really good in this on most hospital shifts," says Kreuh. Kreuh's solution, devised with a small team of IT experts, has been to put a tiny electro-magnetic locator inside the steel pin that joins the bones in order to reveal the exact point and angle to insert the anchor screw.

As a bonus, the team has also used the micro-navigator to help line up the two parts of the broken bone, another tricky operation.

"Nobody had thought of entering from inside the nail before. With our system an ordinary surgeon can complete the operations in ten minutes, with no X-rays. It's completely new," says Kreuh.

It also has financial implications; the potential savings per operation range from €1,000-€2,000, depending on particular hospital costs.

With such sums involved, the sales potential worldwide is enormous - and all for an estimated development cost of €400,000. "Considering what we have achieved in Lidis and Guiding Star (the marketing names for the two modules), this is a very small amount of money," says Kreuh.

Proving the idea is one thing; selling it is another. After clinical trials last year, Ekliptik, the Slovenian start-up founded to develop the project, has trained a German doctor from Stuttgart in the system, and is confident of completing this, its first sale, by the autumn."We are also in the testing process before sale at an Italian hospital, and in a tender process in Croatia," adds Mateja Majcen of the company.

EKLIPTEK
First month of trading? Prob. September 2008
2007-8 predicted sales? Testing prior to sales to two hospitals, one in Italy and one in Germany. Start up money? €600,000 Product range? Have finished the R&D phase for the Lidis and Guiding Star modules. Sales channels? First phase: direct sales; the future: national representatives and distributors. Marketing spend? €30,000 for professional conferences and fairs.