Israeli-made ‘natural’ bone pin gets its first big break with FDA clearance

The more natural product will heal broken bones with fewer complications than the metal pins currently in use.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Caesarea-based orthopedic device company Ossio has received FDA clearance for its innovative bone pins, the company reported in January.

The pins are made of a natural mineral fiber matrix that can be absorbed into the bones they are holding together while they heal, eliminating the need for metal pins that can cause major problems to patients.

In what is being called “first of its kind technology,” the company’s pins are even stronger than bone, and provide a better mechanical match than a metal implant, which can weaken the bone around it. The more natural pin gradually transfers load to the bone during the regeneration process, and is reabsorbed within 18-24 months, leaving no “residual hardware” behind.

This means that there is no need for secondary removal surgeries, as is the case sometimes with the standard metal pins due to complications or failure of the implant surgery or pain due to inflammation of the area.

“An implant that maintains its strength through the known healing timeline, and is then completely integrated into the surrounding anatomy with no adverse inflammation is a real breakthrough for surgeons and the patients we treat,” said Stuart Miller, MD, orthopedic surgeon at MedStar Union Memorial Hospital and Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD.

Future applications for Ossio’s breakthrough technology include screws and plates that can help heal many kinds of fractures, even including spinal segments, as well as aiding in reconstructive surgery.

Ossio was founded in 2014 by Orahn Preiss-Bloom, who got his start as a biomechanics researcher at the IDF Institute for Military Physiology after studying in the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.  Prior to his success at Ossio, he had founded a company that developed two other biosurgical product families to a commercial stage.