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NUI Galway engineers make the news with OsteoAnchor

   

OsteoAnchor is a new type of surface architecture for improving the lifespan for patients of cementless orthopaedic implants, such as hip and knee replacements. It has been developed over the last 4 years by Dr. Pat Mc Donnell and Dr. Noel Harrison, biomedical engineers who work in the Commercialisation Research Office at BMEC, NUI Galway and funded by Enterprise Ireland.

Dr Noel Harrison from OsteoAnchor (NUI Galway) with Sean Sherlock TD, Minister for Research and Innovation, and Deirdre Glenn, Enterprise Ireland Director of Manufacturing, Engineering and Energy Commercialisation

OsteoAnchor was presented by Dr. Noel Harrison at Enterprise Ireland's Big Ideas event. This event showcased the most promising technologies with commercialisation potential to emerge from Irish research institutions this year and was attended by Seán Sherlock (Minister for Research and Innovation) as well as some 300 delegates from the venture capital and investment sector. OsteoAnchor featured in RTE’s Six-One News (32 minutes in) and the Irish Times.

OsteoAnchor is a solution for the problem of loosening of artificial hip and knee joints, which requires traumatic and costly revision surgery. The unique aspect of OsteoAnchor  is the multitude of tiny claw features that protrude from a porous lattice and which embed into the patient’s bone. Our tests have shown that no other surface coating on the market provides such  a strong initial fixation. This facilitates improved long term implant fixation and lifetime via hard bone tissue ingrowth, in and around the other micro structural features on the surface of the  implant. A successful pre-clinical trial of an OsteoAnchor hip replacement in an ovine model has confirmed the effectiveness of the technology in-vivo. OsteoAnchor technology is suitable for multiple applications including hip, knee, elbow, shoulder and ankle replacements. The market size for hip replacements alone is in the region of €6 billion per annum. OsteoAnchor will initially target the revision hip market, where fixation is most difficult to achieve. A patent application has been  filed to protect this technology in multiple jurisdictions. For more information, visit www.osteoanchor.com.
    

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