Article preview from Medtech Insight -October 01, 2010
Noteworthy news from medtech start-ups. This month we profile Miromatrix Medical, which is developing perfusion decellularization technology for regenerating tissues and organs, and CardiOx, which is developing a noninvasive PFO screening test.
Article preview from Medtech Insight -October 01, 2010
Roughly 100,000 people in the US are currently awaiting a heart, lung, kidney, liver, or other organ transplant, more than one million die each year from organ failure, and millions live with failing organs. What if it were possible for every one of these people, and others across the world, to receive a new functional organ and at the same time save health care costs?
That is the goal of regenerative medicine start-up Miromatrix Medical Inc., founded in July 2009, which is working to commercialize a technology known as perfusion decellularization. Its proprietary, patent-protected technology involves the decellularization of any vascularized tissue, up to and including whole organs, leaving behind a completely preserved native scaffold (matrix) that retains the original architecture, mechanical properties, and vascular network of the tissue or organ. This scaffold can then be repopulated with vascular- and organ-specific regenerative cells, and under controlled conditions in a bioreactor, a biocompatible, functioning organ or tissue is created.
The promise of this technology is what led 30-year pharmaceutical and medical device industry executive Robert Cohen to join the company as president and CEO in November 2009. "We're using a matrix that is so recognizable to cells that when new cells are added to the matrix, they know exactly what to do. All the things that they need to survive and function still remain in the matrix, and that's the wonder of all this," says Cohen.
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