Aberdeen spin-out grafts $42,500

Sirakoss, a spin-out from Aberdeen University, has won the Venture Prize from the Worshipful Company of Armourers and Brasiers, worth £25,000 ($42,500).

The company was awarded the prize for its MaxiSi Graft technology, which produces a synthetic material that can be used as artificial bones. It has taken the researchers eight years to develop the material, which has a unique chemical composition and scaffold structure for achieving bone repair and fusion.

Currently, patients in need of a bone graft will usually have it grafted from elsewhere in their body or harvested from a cadaver. Both these procedures have issues. For the former, the patient has to recover from two operations (one to graft the bone and one to apply it) – with more than 30% of patients suffering long term chronic pain at the previously healthy site where the bone was harvested. The latter procedure has the potential for disease transmission and the bone is of variable quality and efficacy.

The prize money will allow the company to advance its efforts in achieving regulatory approval for clinical use. The aim is to have MaxSi Graft technology – which will create an almost endless supply of artificial bones as the material is simply produced in a lab – approved for use in patients in two years’ time.

Brian Butchart, CEO of Sirakoss, said: “In a very competitive field we are delighted to have won this award which recognises the outstanding material science in the development of our synthetic bone graft and the clearly defined commercial opportunity. Receiving this recognition from the Worshipful Company of Armourers & Brasiers, which with its origins dating back to 1322, is a huge endorsement of the development efforts undertaken by the team and in particular Professor Iain Gibson and Jordan Conway.”