4D Medicine Limited has appointed Dr Tom Buckland as its new Chairman and Non-executive Director.
Tom joins the Board with vast experience in executive leadership roles within the medical device industry. Tom has been instrumental in driving the rapid growth of university medtech spin-outs and leading them to successful exits. Tom’s first venture, ApaTech Limited, a spin-out from the University of London, was sold to Baxter International for $330M in 2010. In 2020, Tom led Aberdeen University medtech spin-out Sirakoss to an exit worth $11M.
Philip Smith, CEO at 4D Medicine Limited, commented:
“I’m delighted to welcome Tom as the first Chairman of our main Board. Tom’s wealth of medical device experience and proven entrepreneurial flair adds further strength to our world class senior management team, and I am sure he will help us realise our ambitious plans. Tom’s input will be invaluable as we seek to exploit the broad medical device development and commercialisation opportunities afforded by 4Degra®, our proprietary resorbable photocurable polymer. I’m very much looking forward to working with Tom as we take the company onto its next stage of development.”
Tom Buckland commented:
“I’m thrilled to be joining 4D Medicine Limited at such an exciting time in the company’s development. The company has made incredible progress over the last four years and is now poised to make a substantial impact in the bioresorbable medical device market. I believe that 4Degra® is a real game-changer that will enable 4D to create and deliver better bioresorbable medical devices that positively transform patient’s lives.”
He added:
“We have a clear strategy and vision centred around introducing this novel biomaterial platform to global regulators and building strong collaborative partnerships with future-focused industry players. I look forward to being part of the team tasked with delivering the next phase of this exciting journey.”
4D Medicine Limited is the parent company to two wholly owned subsidiaries, (4D Biomaterials Ltd and 4D Medical Devices Ltd) each with specific functions in the research, development and commercialisation of new resorbable biomaterials and implantable medical devices that help people heal.
Spun-out from the Universities of Birmingham and Warwick in April 2020, founders Professor Andrew Dove and Dr Andrew Weems, appointed Philip Smith as CEO to lead the nascent business through its formative years. Having raised over £2.5m in equity funding via pre-seed and seed rounds, the company has successfully transferred the technology out of the universities and scaled it up into an independent development and production facility in Nottingham with the capacity to manufacture 1.5% of the current global demand for medical grade resorbable polymers.
With over £30 billion of market opportunities identified in the resorbable medical device market, the company is now engaged in taking its first medical device product range through regulatory approval processes in its target markets. Resorbable biomaterials haven’t changed significantly for decades. Although widely used in implantable medical devices, materials such as Polylactic Acid (PLA), Polycaprolactone (PCL), Poly Lactic-co-Glycolic Acid (PLGA) and their derivatives have delivered sub-optimal clinical performance with several key issues having been identified.
4Degra® is a resorbable biomaterial suited to a wide range of implantable medical device applications. It is a photocurable resin that can be processed into the finished device form by 3D printing, casting or conversion into thin films or meshes.
Capable of creating devices that range from soft and flexible to strong and rigid, 4Degra® resins are all formulated with 4D Biomaterials® unique polycarbonate-urethane chemistry. In pre-clinical studies, 4Degra® demonstrated a lower foreign body response and accelerated tissue healing when compared with established bioresorbable polymers.†
Softer grades of 4Degra® exhibit excellent shape memory response, making them ideally suited for the manufacture of minimally invasive surgical devices including meshes, stents, films, and soft tissue scaffolds. Harder formulations are suited to more mechanically demanding uses such as trauma fixation plates, pins, screws, and load-bearing bone regeneration scaffolds.
Web: 4dmedicine.co.uk
