Stratasys, CollPlant Ink Deal for Industrial-Scale Bioprinting

Stratasys and CollPlant Biotechnologies began a joint development and commercialization deal to partner on developing a solution to bio-fabricate human tissues and organs using Stratasys’ P3 technology-based bioprinter and CollPlant’s rh-Collagen-based bioinks.
 
The first project will focus on developing an industrial-scale solution for CollPlant’s regenerative breast implants program.
 
The new bioprinter, according to the companies, will enable production of CollPlant’s breast implants that will be engineered to regenerate natural breast tissue without causing an immune response. The most common breast augmentation or reconstruction procedures today are based on synthetic silicone breast implantations, which risk complications.
 
Both companies agreed to cross-promote each other’s bioprinter products. Stratasys’ bioprinter will be offered to customers together with CollPlant’s bioinks, and vice versa.
 
“Through this partnership with CollPlant, we have an important opportunity to transform healthcare with bioprinting to improve the lives of patients undergoing breast augmentation or reconstruction procedures,” Stratasys CEO Dr. Yoav Zeif told the press. “This agreement is well-aligned with our strategy to deliver complete solutions for high-growth industry applications with our ecosystem of partners, and the production scale and precision 3D printing capabilities of Stratasys’ P3 Programmable Photopolymerization technology are a particularly strong fit for bioprinting applications. We believe that partnering with CollPlant will enable us to accelerate the industrialization of bioprinting for regenerative medicine, and we look forward to collaborating towards the successful commercialization of CollPlant’s novel regenerative breast implants and beyond.”
 
Yehiel Tal, CEO of CollPlant, added, “Stratasys is leading in additive manufacturing and we are excited to collaborate with them on this transformative initiative. The P3 technology allows printing with high resolution and process control, and we believe that the combined, pioneering technologies of both companies will streamline the development and production process so that we have the most efficient means to produce our regenerative breast implants and other potential tissues and organs. We believe that our rhCollagen-based regenerative implant has the potential to overcome the challenges of existing breast procedures that use silicone implants or autologous fat tissue transfer.”
 
CollPlant announced in January 2023 it had successfully completed a large-animal study for its 3D-printed regenerative breast implants. The preclinical study showed progressive stages of tissue regeneration after three months, highlighted by formation of maturing connective tissue and neovascular networks in the implants, with no adverse events reported. Based on these positive results, CollPlant plans to begin a follow-up, large-animal study in the second half of 2023 using commercial-size implants to support human studies and future product commercialization.