Trinity spinout Altach secures €1.2 million investment to transform treatments for cartilage injuries

Posted on: 23 May 2024

Altach Biomedical Ltd, a medical device company backed by NLC Health Ventures, which spun out from Trinity College Dublin, has secured investment of €1.2 million to address the urgent need for improved treatments for articular cartilage injuries, which are a major cause of osteoarthritis.

This technology supports the bodyʼs healing process by mimicking the properties of native cartilage, and encouraging innate cartilage regeneration. The scaffold essentially offers more effective alternatives to traditional cartilage repair methods.

Tomir Kosowski, CEO of Altach, said: “Our technology marks a significant advancement in how we treat articular cartilage injuries. Our scaffolds could reduce recovery times and increase the quality of healing, profoundly improving patients' daily lives.”

Dr David Browe, Chief Technology Officer and one of the inventors, is also an adjunct professor in Trinity’s School of Engineering. He added: “Over a decade of research and development has already been conducted on the Altach product, taking the technology from initial proof of concept studies to pre-clinical evaluation.

“We have already met several key development milestones including the recent granting of our US patent. This funding will now allow us to scale up manufacturing and validate our product in advance of clinical use.”

The need for such innovations is critical with over 600,000 cartilage repair procedures performed annually in the US alone. According to a report conducted by iHealthcareAnalyst, the market for cartilage repair is projected to grow to $5.9 US billion by 2031.

The funding round saw participation from a range of investors, such as those from a crowdfunding campaign on Spark Crowdfunding, NLCʼs Stepping Stone Fund, Castanjo B.V., and two individual angel investors, signalling strong confidence in Altach's potential.

The investment will be used to hit key regulatory and development milestones, bringing the Altach technology closer to market readiness and ultimately benefiting patients suffering from cartilage-related injuries.

Prof. Danny Kelly and Prof. Conor Buckley from The Trinity Centre for Biomedical Engineering and Trinity’s School of Engineering are co-founders.

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