A California surgeon has performed the first U.S. bone graft using a pliable foam produced by Research Triangle Park–based medical biomaterials company CURASAN Inc.
Divakar Krishnareddy, M.D., used CURASAN’s CERASORB Ortho Foam bone graft product in a knee fusion procedure, technically called knee arthrodesis, at Los Angeles Community Hospital.
It was the first surgery using CERASORB since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved it in December 2016.
“It’s exciting to see a product that has both excellent handling and strong clinical evidence become available in the U.S.A.,” said Krishnareddy. “CERASORB Ortho Foam’s handling is very easy to adapt to underlying anatomy, preventing large gaps while allowing graft placement where you need it.”
CURASAN Inc., the American subsidiary of publicly traded German regenerative medicine company CURASAN AG, 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 struggle, CURASAN repurchased the rights to its product line, and RIEMSER, Inc., disappeared from the U.S. market.
“We are excited to enter the orthopedic market here in the United States and look forward to working with our sales partners to provide advanced biomaterials to our surgeon customers throughout the U.S.A., ” said M. Shane Ray, president of CURASAN, Inc., after the successful California surgical debut of the pliable bone patch material.
Ray, a native of Tabor City in southeastern North Carolina’s Columbus County, says he plans to grow his part of the company from its Triangle roots to a far-reaching enterprise. The company has eight employees so far, but is in the process of adding a few more and expanding its indirect sales distribution links.
CURASAN 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 bone grafting materials for dental and orthopedic applications. Besides the newly approved CERASORB Ortho FOAM, the company sells other products in the U.S. under the brand names of Cerasorb M, Osbone, Osseolive, Epi-Guide Membranes, CollaGuide Membranes, OsteoSelect DBM Putty, OsteoWrap, AlloSorb.
(C) N.C. Biotechnology Center
