A MEDICAL technology that could transform people’s lives is on the cusp of major expansion.

Tissue Regenix, based at York Science Park, already supplies one of its products – a vascular patch used to repair badly damaged veins – to the NHS.

But the business is on the verge of completing a number of clinical trials and has been developing other uses for its “dCell” patented technology, which would multiply the business’ output.

Tissue Regenix, which started off as a spin-out from the University of Leeds, developed a “washing” process, using chemical washes and sterilisation, to strip out the cells from the organ tissue of animals. This tissue can then be transplanted into the human body without being rejected by the patient’s body. Furthermore, studies have shown that the decellularised tissue acts as a scaffold, which is repopulated with the patient’s own cells and is adopted as a living part of their body.

Antony Odell, chief executive of the business, which employs 17 people, said that as the new products come to the market, they will need a proper manufacturing facility.

He said: “We will have to scale it up and we’re looking at a number of ways of doing that, either expanding this facility, moving to a new one or using another company to make them for us.”

He said they were still putting together the plans of how exactly they will grow the company.

“The team we have at the moment is very busy, so more products means more people. We are going to need to expand the company to deal with it, creating more jobs in this area,” he said.

Mr Odell said he would like to keep the business in York if an appropriate location can be found.

“When we moved from Leeds, we were amazed at the high quality of people you get around here and we have been able to recruit very good quality people locally,” he said.

Tissue Regenix started in 2006 with a small amount of investment and two people in the laboratory. It put its first product in a patient in 2009 and listed on the AIM market in June 2010. It was recently valued at £56 million market capitalisation.

The business is currently involved in a pilot dermatology trial funded by NHS Blood and Transplant, (NHSBT) to use its technology in the treatment of chronic wounds, which can take years to heal or may not heal at all because the patient’s body is not able to undergo the healing process itself. A decellularised scaffold on the wound could form a skin graft to enable the wound to heal, said Mr Odell.

The business is also developing a product to restore knee meniscus, and has had positive results from a five-year trial by partners in Brazil, transplanting heart valves into patients using the dCell process.

In Brazil, more than 140 patients with limited surgical options have had the human heart valve transplant using the technology, including the first child.

Mr Odell said the trial represents a breakthrough, particularly for younger patients, because children, who have more active immune systems than adults, usually reject artificial transplants.

And as the transplant becomes a living part of the patient’s body, it grows with them, meaning they don’t need to have multiple surgeries as they grow up.

The developments gear the company up to go at a massive global market, with £2 billion being spent on damaged knee meniscus, a 1 billion dollar heart valve market and chronic wounds costing the NHS £1 billion per year, as well as the care of chronic wounds taking up 80 per cent of the time of district nurses.

He said: “It is a simple manufacturing process. The magic bit is when we put this scaffold into your body. What takes over is a natural healing mechanism.

We’re not putting drugs into people, but taking advantage of a natural healing process.

“We have data coming back over the next six to eight months and a lot of things coming through the pipeline,” he said.


Fact file

Antony Odell joined Tissue Regenix in January 2008 and was made chief executive in October 2008. He spent the first half of his career in large businesses, such as Johnson and Johnson, in the medical technology sector before co-directing a medical technology consultancy, and raising £5 million while chief executive of medical device start-up Tayside Flow Technologies.