IKC Annual Review 2016 1 | Page 8

Medical Technologies IKC | 8 Directly implanted devices Standard regenerative medicine involves regenerating human cells and tissues; what we’re doing is providing scaffolds, made from acellular materials, that patients’ own cells can grow into. Developing directly implanted regenerative device technologies is absolutely central to the mission of the Medical Technologies IKC. Our researchers working in this area are developing scaffolds, biomaterials and devices which enable tissue repair and regeneration. We work closely with our academic, industrial and clinical partners to select technologies with the highest potential for commercialisation and patient benefit. Standard regenerative medicine involves regenerating human cells and tissues; what we’re doing is providing scaffolds made from acellular materials that patients’ own cells can grow into. This potentially makes the regulatory pathway more straightforward and enables us to bring technologies to market more quickly and cost effectively. Directly implanted devices make up a large proportion of the research funded by the Medical Technologies IKC and we’ve seen some great progress in a variety of different applications. In the past year, for example, we’ve seen some of our decellularised tendon devices tested successfully in pre-clinical trials and some really promising proof of concept work in the area of maxillofacial surgery. Our pipeline of new projects is now well established and we’re looking forward to seeing these develop further through the next round of Medical Technologies IKC funding.