Israel Biotechnology Company Matrixlf, which operates in the regenerative medicine and tissue engineering sector, was ranked third in the 2022 Startup World Cup in San Francisco. The company aims to enable people with spinal cord injuries to get rid of their wheelchairs.
The Startups World Cup, sponsored by venture capital fund Pegasus, is the world’s largest startup competition, in which some 17,000 companies compete in approximately 70 geographic regions around the world. Pegasus Tech Ventures is a global venture capital fund headquartered in Silicon Valley.
Matricelf’s CEO, Dr. Asaf Toker, said: “It is a great honor for me to represent Matricelf at the prestigious tournament of the American investment fund Pegasus, during which we unveiled the company’s technology to hundreds of guests, to various fund managers and companies around the world, and reaching the top three of the most promising companies is indeed a huge achievement and an expression of confidence in our way of creating a solution for paralyzed patients following spinal cord trauma and for the future of other illnesses.”
Matricelf’s Chief Scientist, Professor Tal Dvir, added: “As the company’s Chief Scientist and Technology Father, I am delighted to receive international recognition for the technology I have been working on for a decade. . There is no doubt that the transition from academia to industry is a challenge for us, and this recognition by the industry that we are in the top 3 of the most promising companies in the world is another milestone in my work. to repair the spinal cord and other developing diseases.”
Matricelf develops autologous implants for the regeneration of damaged body tissues and organs for a variety of diseases and medical conditions, using a cellular component and an extracellular component from the patients themselves, in a way that prevents rejection of the implant on an immune basis – one of the greatest challenges in the field of tissue and organ transplants, for which there is currently no answer. The production of the implants is done with a patented technology, which combines a temperature-sensitive hydrogel, which is produced in a unique process that includes processing a piece of omentum (intra-abdominal fatty tissue) taken from the patients themselves -same and pluripotent stem cells, which are produced from adult cells, also taken from the patient.
The technology is a platform that can serve many medical applications in the field of tissue engineering and the first indication the company is currently focusing on is the production of an autologous neural implant for spinal cord injury. .
The Ness-based company Ziona, which was founded in 2019 by Alon Sinai and Professor Tal Dvir of Tel Aviv University, is based on technology that has been developed over the past decade in Professor Dvir’s lab. , and with which the first human heart in history was printed about three years ago.
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – October 3, 2022.
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