Society for Biomaterials a Product Pipeline Crystal Ball
BY DAVID KRESSEL, APRIL 24, 2007
Last week, we attended the Society for Biomaterials' annual conference. The event showcases the latest academic research and its broad applications across medical specialties. Roughly a third of the poster presentations focused on orthopedics, and most of the rest related to cardio, neuro, ophthalmology and delivery systems for stem cells and cancer treatments.
In addition to learning about cutting edge academic research, many leading orthopedics companies presented posters highlighting a bit about what's ahead in their R&D pipelines. Here are some highlights:
Zimmer's posters focused on using Vitamin E as an antioxidant to reduce wear of polyethylene bearing surfaces as well as cartilage tissue engineering.
Wright had a number of posters on a new metal foam they are developing (BioFoam) which is similar to Zimmer's Trabecular Metal.
Synthes' posters discussed research into new bone cements (including a statin-eluting one), implant coatings and what appears to be the development of a nucleus replacement hydrogel.
Biomet's research was centered on antibiotic-releasing bone cements, electrostimulation, platelet-rich plasma (PRP) and 3i's new coating, NanoTite.
Stryker had posters on bone cement and, like all other recon companies, large joint reconstruction surface wear.
Depuy/J&J had posters on HEALOS (their collagen matrix) and PRP.
