Veteran health care entrepreneur Shane Ray has skin in the tissue regeneration game and he sees growth in bones.

That’s why he became president of Research Triangle Park–based curasan Inc. in May 2016. And he’s putting it on a growth trajectory.

Today the American subsidiary of publicly traded German regenerative medicine company curasan AG has only seven employees, all but one in North Carolina. They’re involved in sales, administration, customer service and marketing, primarily in the U.S. and Canada.

That, however, is about to change, says Ray, a native of Tabor City in southeastern North Carolina’s Columbus County. He plans to grow his part of the company from its Triangle roots to a far-reaching enterprise.

Curasan Inc. was established in the Triangle in 2004 and was subsequently purchased by RIEMSER Inc., a dental supply company that was the U.S. subsidiary of RIEMSER Pharma Gmbh, a German specialty pharmaceutical company. After RIEMSER went through a period of transition, curasan repurchased the rights to its product line.

Ray, a graduate of East Carolina University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is a veteran of the medical device industry. His career has taken him many places, but he says he’s committed to North Carolina as the ideal location for growth in the Americas.

“We have plans to expand throughout the next several years, including some staff within North Carolina,” he said. “But more growth will be coming in our number of sales representatives elsewhere throughout the U.S. and Canada.”

It develops, manufactures and markets biomaterials and other medical products for bone and tissue regeneration — products used around the world by dental surgeons, implantologists and oral, maxillary and dentofacial surgeons, as well as orthopods, traumatologists and spinal surgeons.

The portfolio primarily includes synthetic and human orthopedic bone grafting ­materials for dental and orthopedic applications. They’re sold in the U.S. under the brand names of  Cerasorb M, Osbone, Osseolive, Epi-Guide Membranes, CollaGuide Membranes, OsteoSelect DBM Putty, OsteoWrap, AlloSorb.

Ray says curasan relies upon independent sales distributors throughout North America, though it also has inside sales people “and a small number of resalers, who sell primarily through teaching institutions.”

Parent company HQ in Frankfurt, Germany

The parent company’s headquarters, including its R&D and manufacturing facilities, are in Frankfurt/Main and Kleinostheim, Germany. The manufacturing site is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and by regulators of other major global entities.

“I’m trying to provide stability, focus and a strategy for increasing the business,” says Ray. “We’re changing from a purely dental play to encompass more orthopedics, a much larger market, which will be a very nice addition to our dental business. It’s a focus on what we do best – regenerative medicine and bone and soft tissue healing.”

About half of curasan’s U.S. tissue sales involve human cadaver donations, says Ray, whose career has included experience with tissue banking organizations that procure donations and handle processing, sterilization, packaging and labeling of medical tissue implants.

Donated human tissue remains important

“Human tissue remains a huge market,” he explains, “involving membranes, skin, and a lot of tendon replacement and repair of torn ACLs (anterior cruciate ligaments) in sports medicine.” Donors to tissue banks, like organ donors, have many choices, he adds. “Donors can select which tissues they want to donate, they can decide if they want it to be for research, whether it can be exported or stays in the U.S. — all types of ways to strengthen the gift of donation.”

The other half of curasan’s business involves synthetic tissues. In Europe, however, the market is about 95 percent synthetic tissues , he notes. He’s also excited about the opportunities he sees to grow the regenerative medicine business in North America from his Triangle headquarters.

“There’s a lot of great stuff going on in North Carolina,” says Ray. “I grew up in small-town North Carolina. If I can do what I’ve done, something’s going right for this state. I’ve been really blessed, and a beneficiary of all the investment going into this space for past 30 years.

“So I’m a big advocate of North Carolina. To have this cost of living, access to health care, access to intellectual pursuits at our excellent universities, good transportation options, a great CRO (contract research organization) culture, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more blended environment. Recruiting here is easy, and the tax structure is fairly amenable to business.”

“We will expand here in the Triangle,” says Ray.