Israeli biotechnology company Matricelf, which operates in the regenerative medicine and tissue engineering sector, has been ranked third in the 2022 Startups World Cup in San Francisco. The company aims to let people with spinal cord injuries discard their wheelchairs.
The Startups World Cup, which is sponsored by the Pegasus venture capital fund, is the world’s biggest startup competition, in which some 17,000 companies compete from about 70 geographical regions around the world. Pegasus Tech Ventures is a global venture capital fund headquartered in Silicon Valley.
Matricelf CEO Dr. Asaf Toker said, “It is a great honor for me to represent Matricelf in US investment fund Pegasus’s prestigious tournament, in which we unveiled the company’s technology to hundreds of guests, various fund and company managers from around the world, and to reach the top three most promising companies indeed represents a huge success and expression of confidence in our way of creating a solution for paralyzed patients following trauma injuries in the spinal cord and for the future of other illnesses.”
Matricelf chief Scientist Prof. Tal Dvir added, “It thrills me as the Chief Scientist of the company and the father of the technology to receive international recognition for the technology I have been working on for the past decade. There is no doubt that the transition from academia to industry is a challenge for us, and this recognition by the industry that we are in the top 3 of the most promising companies in the world is another milestone in my work to repair spinal cord and other diseases that are in development.”
Matricelf develops autologous implants for the regeneration of damaged body tissues and organs for a variety of diseases and medical conditions, by using a cellular component and an extracellular component from patients themselves, in a way that prevents rejection of the implant on an immune basis – one of the biggest challenges in the field of tissue and organ transplants, for which there is currently no response. The production of the implants is done with a patented technology, which combines a temperature-sensitive hydrogel, which is produced in a unique process that includes the processing of a piece of omentum (intra-abdominal fat tissue) taken from patients themselves and pluripotent stem cells, which are produced from adult cells, also taken from the patient.
The technology is a platform that can serve many medical applications in the field of tissue engineering and the first indication that the company is currently focusing on is the production of an autologous neuronal implant intended for spinal cord injuries.
The Ness Ziona-based company, which was founded in 2019 by Alon Sinai and Prof. Tal Dvir from Tel Aviv University, is based on technology that was developed in the last decade in Prof. Dvir’s laboratory, and with which the first human heart in history was printed about three years ago.
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on October 3, 2022.
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