Testimonials
Matricel GmbH is a young and successful company which is specialised in biomaterials for tissue engineering applications.
The company was founded in August 2001 and since then Dr.Ingo Heschel serves the company as its Managing Director.
He had studied mechanical engineering at the RWTHAachenUniversity. After that, he did his Ph.D. at the Helmholtz-Institute for Biomedical Engineering. Before founding his own company, he was head of the Cryobiology and Biomaterials Department in the Helmholtz-Institute between 1991 and 2001. He applied for a patent in producing porous structures, as well as collagen micro carriers for cell preservation and a method for refrigerating and freezing goods.
The collagen sponge products from Matricel are based on the research developments which Dr. Heschel conducted in the Helmholtz-Institute. The company Verigen advised him to found a company and executed the clinical trials.Verigen even took a substantial amount of shares in this start-up company. Nowadays Verigen is a subsidiary of Genzyme and therefore Genzyme became a minority shareholder of Matricel.
Matricel is located in the Technology Park Herzogenrath. Decisive factors for the location in this centre were on the one hand the possibility to install GMP clean-rooms according to the company´s needs, the offered space, and the option to grow within the parc or in its immediate surrounding. On the other hand the vicinity to the Aachen University of Technology and its university hospital with its medical clinics and institutes was also crucial for the location decision. Dr. Heschel points out the excellent network in the region, for example the cooperation with a closely located company called Celonic and the Helmholtz-Institute in addition to the universities of Aachenand Maastricht. At Matricel, 3 of the 9 staffs are from the , so the international network is promising.
Matricel´s main technologies are:
- collagen processing (purity, cell compatibility and safety)
- collagen scaffold production (control over pore structure and pore size of biomatrix implants)
- cross-linking (control of the resorption time and degradation process of the biomaterials)
Matricel has a proportion of almost 60% in research. The research focus is in the orthopedic field but Matricel is also active e.g. in wound management, and reconstructive surgery. The company is currently a producer of medical devices but might become a pharmaceutical company in the future.
Dr. Heschel further points out that it is a long way from developments in tissue engineering to patient supply and a similarly long way to earn money with it. In the majority of cases the health insurance companies do not yet cover the treatment costs in although clinical studies have shown the superior outcome of some innovative tissue engineering methods especially in the field of articular cartilage regeneration of the knee. Therefore patients who cannot cover the treatment costs on their own might not get the state-of-the-art treatment that furthermore has long term health-economical advantages since it may avoid the implantation of an artificial knee in the future.
Matricel is also active in other fields of tissue engineering. The BMBF (German Ministry of Education and Research) just granted a project application on nerve regeneration that is performed in close cooperation with the Clinic for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery of Aachen University of Technology. Another application with the IZKF BioMat. on soft tissue regeneration is about to be funded quite soon.
The first clinical product of Matricel is “ACI-Maix”. ACI stands for Autologous Chondrocyte Implantation and the word Maix is an expression for Matrix from Aix-la-Chapelle. New product developments like PeriMaix, and NovoMaix also use this ending as a part of the brand name. ACI-Maix is being used by Verigen and in the future also by Genzyme for its matrix-induced articular cartilage regeneration method (CACI and MACI). Currently patients in Europe, in , and in some parts of Asiahave already access to this treatment.
In the all steps to get an FDA approval are currently prepared.
Further information: www.matricel.com
