Amend Surgical, Inc., an Alachua-based medical device company, announced today that it has finalized a funding agreement with the Institute for Commercialization of Florida Technology (the Florida Institute) along with being awarded a substantial product development funding from The Michigan-Pittsburgh-Wyss Regenerative Medicine (MPWRM) Resource Center.
The capital investments, along with the technical collaborations from these four universities, will allow Amend Surgical to accelerate the development and market launch of Amend Tissue Tape™, a biocompatible, hydrogel-based adhesive that safely adheres in wet environments such as the oral cavity. Tissue Tape is an easy to apply, clear, smooth strip that forms a protective barrier between the wound and surrounding tissues. The device stays in place during wound healing to prevent further irritation, contamination and provides improvement in wound healing and patient comfort following dental surgery or soft tissue injuries. Amend Surgical is actively developing both non-resorbable and resorbable product options for applications in periodontal and oral surgical procedures. The intellectual property for the Tissue Tape™ technology was licensed from The Wyss Institute at Harvard University in June 2020.
The Florida Institute supports new company development and expansion based on publicly funded research and bridges early funding gaps for early-stage Florida-based technology companies. This new funding agreement represents Florida Institutes second investment in the team at Amend Surgical. The MPWRM Resource Center was established as an interdisciplinary partnership amongst the University of Michigan, the University of Pittsburgh, and the Wyss Institute, along with technology, clinical, regulatory, marketing, and commercial translation experts from private practice and industry. Through this collaborative effort, their goal is to accelerate clinical adoption of promising technologies by providing the interdisciplinary expertise and resources to guide technologies towards FDA submissions.
“We are committed to providing dental and oral surgeons effective and predictable product options for treating intraoral wounds and help improve post-procedure patient comfort. As the only material that that can adhere to oral-dental soft tissue, maintain binding strength multiple weeks after application and support healing, Tissue Tape will fill a significant unmet need in a market exceeding $850 million per year,” said Robby Lane, Chief Executive Officer of Amend Surgical.
“We are excited about the significant progress made by Amend Surgical in moving this important technology toward market approval,” said Rafael Lohner, Florida Institute Executive Director. “Amend Surgical is another successful example of an exceptional team developing market disruptive products right here in Florida that will benefit not only patients in Florida, but around the world.”
Institute for Commercialization of Florida Technology was formed by the Florida Legislature in 2007 and supports and funds innovation companies that create clean jobs in new industries driving the global economy. The Florida Institute provides company building services and seed funding through the Florida Technology Seed Capital Fund to promising Florida start-ups that are developing products that improve and save lives and help companies improve their bottom line. The organization’s investment decisions are guided through a strong partnership with its Private Fund Manager, Florida Funders. The Institute’s economic impact over the last 11 years was $3.4 billion, with fiscal revenue impacts of over $382 million to federal, state, and local governments.
MPWRM Resource Center is one of the two national Resource Centers established by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR)’s Dental Oral and Craniofacial Tissue Regeneration Consortium (DOCTRC) initiative. With the overarching goal of developing clinical trial-ready tissue engineering/regenerative medicine products and protocols, the MPWRM Resource Center provides funding and resources through the Interdisciplinary Translational Project (ITP) program. The MPWRM Resource Center brings together a multi-disciplinary team of clinicians, engineers, scientists, and technology commercialization and regulatory experts from academia and industry to support the regenerative medicine research community by providing resources and expertise to guide innovations that address unmet clinical needs for the regeneration or restoration of DOC tissues. The MPWRM Resource Center is supported in part by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number U24DE029462.
Amend Surgical is strategically focused on the development and commercialization of novel biomaterials for the oral surgical and dental market coupled with manufacturing expertise and operations capabilities for our OEM partnerships in the spine and orthopedics market. The company currently has eight employees and occupies a manufacturing and administrative space in the biotech corridor of Alachua, Florida.