Company Profile:
EpiBone
EpiBone is a revolutionary company that will allow the 900K US patients undergoing bone-related surgeries each year to “grow their own bone”. Our pioneering technology utilizes scans of patients' bone defects and their own stem cells to engineer personalized bone grafts. EpiBone offers surgeons simplified procedures and patients improved bone formation/regeneration – and shorter recovery times – without the complications of synthetic implants.
Q: How will it help people live to their greatest potential or contribute to making the world healthier?
A: Bones are remarkable organs capable of self-repair without scars. However, there are a number of serious conditions which overwhelm the bone’s ability to heal itself. Examples include large defects, severe trauma, and genetic disorders. EpiBone's living, anatomically-precise, patient-specific bone grafts are engineered for a perfect fit, and integrate with their skeleton without a need for a second surgery. We want to help people preserve their bodies for a longer, higher quality of life.
Q: What single word or phrase best describes the culture of your startup and why?
A: Growth. We are not only a company that hopes to push the paradigm that medical devices may be grown rather than manufactured, but we are also a company that believes in investing in the personal growth of all of its members.
Q: Please tell us how your business idea was conceived. Was there an "aha" moment or did it evolve gradually?
A: Our company was spun out of technology developed through more than 15 years of scientific research at Columbia University. In 2012, past the point of being government-funded "basic science," the EpiBone project won a BioAccelerate Prize from the NYC Partnership Fund, which enabled it to graduate from the academic lab. EpiBone Inc. was born!
Q: Five years from now, what would you like to be able to say has been your most important contribution to health?
A: We would like to be in clinical trials with EpiBone, with a clear path ahead of us to making skeletal defects a condition of the past.
Q: What's the most inventive, innovative, or disruptive aspect of your initiative?
A: We are thrilled at the prospect of pioneering a new paradigm for skeletal reconstruction that unlocks the power of the patient’s own stem cells to regenerate the body. Humanity has long viewed the body as a “machine” with “interchangeable parts” provided by cadaver tissues and prosthetic devices. By mobilizing stem cells to grow fully biological replacement parts in the laboratory, we envision a future in which the body is viewed as a “renewable resource.” EpiBone is a “grow your own bone” approach to repairing the head, face, shoulder, arms, legs, knees and beyond, and pave the way for other fully biological implants grown using the same principles to repair our missing or diseased organs.