In New Zealand, Upside Biotechnologies and its advanced skin replacement treatment for patients suffering major burns passed a major milestone this week, raising $2.3M in Series A funding round. That would be good news for anyone, but this company happens to be developing on the far side of the world, down in the volcanic if unlikely biotechnology hub of New Zealand, whence the perennially Hot 50 dominator LanzaTech originated.
The company has been spun out of the University of Auckland where the innovative technology was first developed in Professor Rod Dunbar’s laboratory.
We’re not sure what brain-enhancing molecules are in the geysers, but the country generates more good ideas on advanced bioeconomy applications from a tiny footprint of geography than any place with the possible exception of the fermentation-based brewhauses along Duval Street in Key West.
The sad stats on burns and skin replacement
The company’s technology enables a small sample of unburnt patient skin to be grown in the laboratory into large areas of full thickness skin. This lab-grown skin can be used as skin grafts in patients with major burns who do not have enough uninjured skin to provide conventional skin grafts. Upside skin is produced faster than any competitive product in development. It is supplied in larger sheets with excellent handling characteristics preferred by burns surgeons.
It’s a little unseemly to describe a collective of burn victims as a market, but certainly the problem of burns is widespread. The National Institute of Health estimates that 11 million people worldwide are severely burned and 300,000 of them die. Overall, the NIH says, burns are the sixth leading cause of lost productive years.
The 12-step technology and process
The process for culturing our engineered skin product is as follows:
Digest cells from a sample of skin
Culture cells in flasks
Transfer skin cells from flasks to Upside’s culture chambers
Seal chambers
Cells attach to coated synthetic mesh held on frame (orange in diagram)
Incubate
Turn over chambers
Frame holding mesh and cells falls to bottom
Cells are now next to a gas permeable membrane
Gas passing through membrane gives signal for epithelial cells to differentiate
Incubate
Skin ready to be transported to patient in same chambers
The Skin Game
As the Surgery Encyclopedia relates:
Several artificial skin products are available for burns or non-healing wounds, including Integra, Dermal Regeneration Template (from Integra Life Sciences Technology), Apligraft (Novartis), Transcyte (Advance Tissue Science), and Dermagraft. Researchers have also obtained promising results growing or cultivating the patient’s own skin cells in the laboratory. These cultured skin substitutes reduce the need for autografts and can reduce the complications of burn injuries. Laboratory cultivation of skin cells may improve the prognosis for severely burned patients with third-degree burns over 50% of their body. The recovery of these patients has been hindered by the limited availability of uninjured skin from their own bodies for grafting. Skin substitutes may also reduce treatment costs and the length of hospital stays. In addition, other research has demonstrated the possibility of using stem cells collected from bone marrow or blood for use in growing skin grafts.
Next steps
Upside CEO Robert Feldman says the capital raised will enable the company to complete development of the product, demonstrate proof of concept, ready the product for its first human trial and in the United States, forge additional links, collaborations and explore market opportunities.
The investors
The largest investor in the latest funding round is ICE Angels Nominees, which represent investment from both ICE Angels individuals and Tuhua Ventures. Other major investors include The University of Auckland Inventors Fund (managed by Auckland UniServices), Cure Kids Ventures and New Zealand Venture Investment Fund.
Reaction from the stakeholders
“Upside ticked a lot of boxes for us: it can genuinely help change lives around the world; it is led by an experienced team and their research out of the University of Auckland is world class,” says Robbie Paul, CEO of ICE Angels.
Robert Feldman, Upside CEO says, “Raising $2.3m is a fabulous start for Upside and puts the company is a strong position. I am genuinely excited about the future and although there will inevitably be challenges, I am optimistic about being able to take Upside’s products for burns into clinical testing.”
The Bottom Line
Brilliant start-up — we’ll be watching an outstanding example of the use of cell-culturing technology to address a major medical challenge.