Every year, hundreds of thousands of people need bone surgery. There is always a risk for infection. The mission of BONESUPPORT was to develop a bone substitute which could be used in surgical procedures and at the same time be combined with different types of drugs, such as antibiotics. The antibiotic eluting bone substitute is called CERAMENT™|G. It is a synthetic form of bone to replace whatever was lost in actual surgery and incorporated with antibiotics for patients at risk of infection. About 10 000 patients have benefitted from the BONESUPPORT technology, Lloyd Diamond, CEO explains:
“An orthopedic surgeon has two primary concerns when they go into the operating room; One, “How do I prevent infection if I don’t have one”? And “If I do have an infection, how will I treat it”? Bone infection is one of the most difficult types of infections to treat. Infection is a big issue. And two, if a bone is broken or if there is a defect in the bone, how do I make sure it heals properly, the primary purpose as an orthopedic surgeon is to fix it meaning that it heals to a normal bone”.
The bone substitute CERAMENT™|G allows the orthopedic surgeon to manage both of these two concerns.
Lloyd Diamond
BONESUPPORT announced in September,2014 twelve-month follow-up data from an on-going clinical trial at Oxford University. The trial investigates the safety and efficacy of BONESUPPORT’s CERAMENT™|G in chronic bone infection and the completeness of bone healing after surgery. 41 patients with severe bone infections participated.
“The objective was to see if CERAMENT™|G would reduce the potential for recurrence of infection. The other objective was to see if over the time period of 12 months after the implantation of CERAMENT™|G, there was good bone healing”.
Results showed complete wound healing in 75 percent of all patients at 6-months with evidence of ongoing bone remodeling in 80 percent of the remaining patients. The results were much better than expected. The healing of the wounds was also studied.
"With BONESUPPORT's technology all the wounds healed and CERAMENT™|G performed much better than other technologies used for similar applications. Within the context of the study this product proved to be quite revolutionary" says Lloyd Diamond.
Sales in the US are driven very rapidly thanks to the distribution agreement with Biomet.
The market penetration in the US is very good.
“The US surgeons are very preoccupied with efficiency in the operating room. CERAMENT™ is easy to use and works and provides better operating room throughput. We have an exponential sales growth in the US”, Lloyd Diamond says.
He points out his experience being located at Ideon Science Park saying:
“There is a very good structure and healthy collaboration between university research and development and the companies that want to take technologies and really bring them to market. The biotech and scientific research is a huge advantage in this region”.
Learn more about BONESUPPORT:
http://www.bonesupport.com/