On June 3, 2022 Medicen Paris Region organized REGMED Europe, the second edition of the European event on biomaterials and regenerative medicine. Within the Cité Universitaire de Paris campus, more than 80 people from 12 European countries met to share and discuss the future of this discipline.
REGMED Europe was the opportunity to review the results of the Interreg NWE BONE project: Bio-fabrication of Orthopedics in a New Era coordinated by the University of Maastricht. This projectis coming to an end after 5 years of collaboration. The project consortium was created in 2017 following the undeniable observation that the way to curative and affordable solutions goes through 3D implants which also respond to the economic and societal repercussions of bone fractures. Together, 4 research institutes, 4 business support structures and 5 industrial players have joined forces to address the need to accelerate the development of the profitability of 3D implants produced by the MEW: Melt ElectroWriting technique.
The progress after 5 years of collaboration
The latest advances from the BONE project: Improved printing performance thanks to the development of an auger allowing the molten polymer to be extruded with more control (compared to the more common air pressure); First report of a laser irradiation system for a MEW application; Optimization of scaffolds, including the incorporation of calcium phosphate and BMP2 growth factors to improve bone regeneration; Realization of biohybrid tissue layers combining unique scaffold designs via MEW with aggregated micro-tissues from stem cells.
Advances in this area undeniably raise the question of the challenges of European regulations which were then addressed by our guest Aymeric Lebon, from Strategiqual, through the regulation of devices (Medical Device Regulatory). This promising start for the day was followed by a round table on the future of biomaterials with the shared views of Dr David Koper from Maastricht University, Dr Guillaume-A Odri from Inserm, Dr Didier Letourneur from CNRS – National Center for Scientific Research and Julien Payen, CEO and co-founder of Lattice Medical.
