I-Form in consortium awarded €3.4 million in DTIF funding

I-Form, the SFI Research Centre for Advanced Manufacturing, Dublin City University research centre Biodesign Europe, Irish based medical device company PBC Biomed and product design company Dolmen Design and Innovation, are partners in a €5.4 million project awarded funding under the Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund (DTIF). The consortium was awarded €3.4 million in the latest round of funding from the DTIF with the remaining €2 million provided by the industry partners. The project aims to revolutionise the treatment of complex osteoporotic bone fractures.

Osteoporotic fractures are extremely challenging for orthopaedic surgeons to treat and result in a failure rate of 10-15%. The resulting annual fracture-related costs are €45 billion in Europe and are expected to increase by 27% by 2030.

The project, OsStic, is aiming to develop and deliver a bioinspired adhesive that will stick broken bone tissue together following an osteoporotic fracture and then facilitate rapid healing and repair of the bone. 

I-Form Funded Investigator Professor Nicholas Dunne, is also Executive Director of Biodesign Europe, a transatlantic partnership with ASU’s Biodesign Institute. "Osteoporotic bone fractures, affect approximately five million people each year across the world," said Prof Dunne. He will act as the Academic Lead along with colleagues Dr Tanya Levingstone (Biodesign Europe & I-Form, pictured) and Professor Helen McCarthy (Biodesign Europe). 

The DCU team will provide technical expertise associated with testing and validating the efficacy of the platform technology for use in treating osteoporotic bone fractures and will facilitate technology adoption by positioning the OsStic platform technology at their facilities.

The multi-million project will involve working closely with PBC Biomed, the Shannon based medical device company (also located in Memphis, Tennessee) that is focussed on accelerating medical innovation and partners globally with healthcare, professional, academic institutes and MedTech companies to bring new technologies in the areas of bone and tissue healing to market. Paul Burke, Managing Partner at PBC BioMed, acknowledged the support of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. 

It is hoped the development of the bone adhesive will reduce operating times, the risk of infection and reduce the need for hardware in complex osteoporotic fracture treatment. 

Dolmen Design and Innovation will bring innovative delivery solutions to the complex application of the bone adhesives in various anatomical settings.

I-Form brings together a nationwide pool of expertise in materials science, engineering, data analytics and cognitive computing.