Irvine, California, USA – Matregenix Inc., a California-based technology company has been awarded a Phase 1 grant from the National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research under the auspices of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program and National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grant will be utilized to develop a new dental barrier membrane for guided bone regeneration.
In the US, it is projected that by 2027 more than 200 million Americans will experience partial tooth loss. In addition, 41% of American adults need one or more treatments and at least 23% of adults over 65 years of age are edentulous (lacking teeth). With an unprecedented surge in the proportion of individuals at risk for tooth loss, dental extraction, and implantation, is becoming an increasingly prevalent treatment. However, to achieve a long-term and consistent recovery, patients must have adequate bone volume to anchor an implant at the extraction site. Post-extraction resorption of bone commonly occurs which leads to alveolar ridge bone loss. As a result, many patients lack sufficient horizontal or vertical bone, necessitating the use of GBR techniques which regenerate adequate amounts of bone for securing implantations. The prevalence of tooth loss and tooth decay in adults remains a problem to be solved, despite advancing technologies. Barrier membranes are critical tool for use in guided bone regeneration techniques. Current barrier membranes fall short of attaining the desired properties for GBR techniques.
"Our new approach will address the limitations of current products by eliminating the need for animal-based materials while introducing a new biomaterial to benefit the areas of soft tissue repair applications. This award will help us validate the clinical significance of our innovative membrane to provide a more suitable armamentarium for oral and craniomaxillofacial bone regeneration compared to the gold standard collagen membrane" Dr. Sherif Soliman, Founder and CEO of Matregenix