Tel Aviv, Israel-based CoreBone, a company that produces bioactive, coral-based bone graft material, has just completed a $3.7 million investment round.
CoreBone develops its bioactive bone graft material for use in the dental and orthopedics industries. It is an innovator in the bone graft industry and, according to the company’s press release, “is the only company that uses cultured coral for bone grafting.” CoreBone uses a select coral breeding source and “proprietary technology and laboratory-made sea water enriched with bioactive nutrients” to grow its corals in a closed aquarium system.
The Guangzhou Sino-Israel Biotech Investment Fund, an investment fund dedicated to bringing Israeli biotechnology to China’s life science market, invested $3 million in CoreBone’s Chinese subsidiary. The remaining $700,000 was invested by The Trendlines Group and Agriline. CoreBone plans to use the funds to expand CoreBone’s commercial global presence, mainly in China.
OTW spoke with CoreBone CEO Ohad Schwartz about the company’s decision to expand to China: “China is the fastest growing market for both dental and orthopedics. It is constantly looking for high quality, advanced technology solutions on one hand yet has regulatory high barriers for entry.”
Schwartz continued, “Allografts (human derived grafts) are banned from importation. Xenografts (animal derived grafts) are hardly in use in orthopedics. CoreBone will offer the only foreign bone-like non synthetic graft for this growing market.”
Schwartz then explained how the company plans to spend the investment in China, telling OTW, “The investment is focused on product commercialization—completing the regulatory phase which includes large scale multi-center clinical studies and product launch.”
Looking forward, the company is focused on clinical studies. Schwartz told OTW, “Our targets for the coming year are to complete the dental clinical study, obtain NMPA [National Medical Products Administration] approval and launch an orthopedic clinical study.”
