By Anne Servidad, Altitude Accelerator Communications Intern
Induce Biologics is a Altitude Accelerator client that is developing innovative solutions to regenerate bone. They recently signed a $250,000 licensing and distribution agreement with Antibe Therapeutics for the Canadian rights to URIST™ Putty for use in dental and craniofacial surgery.
Currently the standard treatment to promote bone regeneration is autograft where surgeons take bone from one part of the patient’s body (hip, rib etc.) and transplant it at the repair site. This requires additional surgical time, increases blood loss, prolongs the patient’s recovery time and can cause complications at the site where the autograft was harvested.
An alternative to autograft are Bone Morphogenetic Protein-2 (BMP) containing implants. BMP is a natural protein that stimulates bone formation and repair. URIST Putty contains BMP and has been shown in preclinical studies to effectively regenerate large boney defects.
In February 2015, Induce Biologics raised $2M from Belmore Capital, a Toronto-based venture capital firm with a presence on Palo Alto.
“The $2M is being used to conduct various toxicity, efficacy and biocompatibility studies. Before this we had to develop the final implant design and the manufacturing processes to produce the BMP and the implant. Now we’re dealing with regulatory required testing and have hired a full-time quality control manager to ensure manufacturing and testing is conducted in a controlled and consistent manner.” says Sean Peel, co-founder of Induce Biologics.
Induce hopes to be able to complete their safety and biocompatibility studies in 2016. Once it’s all completed the results will be used in their clinical trial application which will be submitted to Health Canada.
“We have been working with the Altitude Accelerator since the beginning and they’ve really helped us mature over time. Even now they are still a big help with networking and making connections.” says Sean Peel, co-founder of Induce Biologics.
The Altitude Accelerator congratulates Induce Biologics on the licensing deal with Antibe Therapeutics and continues to support them through their journey to building a successful regenerative medicine company.
