OSSTEC will use new investment to seek regulatory approval in the US, while beginning a first clinical trial in the UK.
Joint replacement patients could stay active for longer thanks to a 3D-printed material from Imperial startup OSSTEC, which has raised a further £2.5 million to take its technology to the market. Based on novel material that behaves like bone, the company's joint replacement system promises to simplify surgery, reduce implant failures and keep patients active for longer.
The funding means that the technology is now closer to entering clinical use. "This is our go-to-market investment round," explains Dr Max Munford, founder and Chief Executive of OSSTEC. "These funds will enable us to get regulatory approval in the US, carry out our first surgeries as part of a trial in the UK, and to earn our first revenues in the US."
The company's introduction to the US was supported by Imperial, which recently opened an Imperial Global hub in the San Francisco Bay Area. It included OSSTEC in a Venture Trek, one of its missions to pitch and network in entrepreneurial hotspots such as New York and San Francisco.
"We first met some of our most supportive investors in this round on the San Francisco Venture Trek from two years ago," Dr Munford says.
OSSTEC is an excellent example of how scientific discovery can be transformed into real-world impact. Dr Johnathan Matlock Empirical Ventures
The funding round was led by Empirical Ventures, a UK-based venture capital firm that specialises in deep-technology. Due to the level of interest, the round remains open for further investment.
"OSSTEC is an excellent example of how scientific discovery can be transformed into real-world impact," said Dr Johnathan Matlock, co-founder and general partner at Empirical Ventures.
"The company has huge potential to completely reform best practices in this field of healthcare, with an impressive team of scientists pushing the boundaries of engineering and medical research."
Working with surgeons
OSSTEC was founded in 2021 from a PhD student project in the Department of Mechanical Engineering on how 3D printing could be used in surgery. In 2023, the company raised £1.2 million in seed funding from investors, including the Imperial College Enterprise Fund.
Since then, OSSTEC has been building its team of in-house engineers and a pool of surgeons to take the technology through to its first use in patients, which will be for partial knee replacements. While its lead surgeon and chief medical officer Alex Liddle is based in the UK, the company has been keen to build links with surgeons in the US, which is where the product will launch first.
"It was important for us to build a team of surgeons who are global leaders in their space, with a combined experience using a broad range of implants, surgical techniques and technology adoption," Dr Munford says.
The US is an attractive starting place because the market is large and the regulatory system can be supportive for a small company like OSSTEC. And there are potential partners and future investors who can help the company scale up. "The US is where a lot of the value is for a company like ours," Dr Munford says.
Departmental roots
At the same time, he wants OSSTEC to maintain its strong relationship with Imperial, with the core team continuing to work with the laboratories in Mechanical Engineering where Dr Munford did his PhD research.
"There are a lot of benefits in having research and commercialisation teams side-by-side," Dr Munford says. "We get to have interesting conversations with the academic researchers, which you don't typically have as a product-focused startup, and researchers and students get to see the process of taking a medical product to market."
As OSSTEC matures, he hopes that further research partnerships will emerge. "The plan is to use our first product as a platform for further innovation, so I'd love OSSTEC to be sponsoring PhDs and working on other projects with Imperial researchers."
Still enterprising
Having developed OSSTEC through the Venture Catalyst Challenge, the MedTech SuperConnector and other support provided by the Enterprise Lab, Dr Munford is keen to play an active part in Imperial's entrepreneurial ecosystem.
"When you build a strong ecosystem, as has happened with the Enterprise Lab, then every success makes new successes," he says. "I think that OSSTEC is on its way to being a success, so it is our duty now to help other people grow and give back to that ecosystem."
He is currently co-organising the Imperial Founders' Round Table, which gathers together company founders, from pre-seed through to Series B, to share their experience. "Once a quarter we tackle a new topic and look at best practices, shared learnings for the ecosystem, and publish our thoughts," he explains.
"I'm biased, but think we are a very good example of what happens when you have a strong Imperial ecosystem, and I would never want to stop engaging with that."
Dr Ben Mumby-Croft, Director of Entrepreneurship at Imperial, agrees. "OSSTEC's journey is a brilliant example of the kind of entrepreneurial venture we strive to support at Imperial—one that translates world-class research into real-world impact," he says. "Imperial Enterprise Lab is proud to have played a role in its growth, from early-stage support to connecting it with investors through our Venture Trek programme."
