The European Awards for University Entrepreneurs aim to give public recognition to those who have done the most in 2008 to foster a culture of enterprise, the ultimate aim being to improve the flow of ideas out of European laboratories and into the marketplace. The prizes were awarded by the Science|Business Innovation Board, a blue-ribbon panel of leaders in industry, academia and policy, at a ceremony at Sweden’s Royal Academy of Engineering, and were given to companies tackling major issues of health, the environment and security and leaders of technology transfer.
The Science|Business Innovation Board was set up to formulate recommendations for European innovation policy action. The distinguished panel of Judges included Esko Aho, former Finnish prime minister; J. Frank Brown, Dean of INSEAD; Jean-Philippe Courtois, President of Microsoft International, and Harriet Wallberg-Henriksson, president of Karolinska, the Swedish university that names the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology each year.
Dr Lynn played a leading role in formulating the technology behind Orthomimetics’ products during his PhD at the University of Cambridge. His research was funded by the Cambridge-MIT Institute (CMI) and formed part of a collaboration between world leading academics at the two Universities, who have each contributed more than 30 years of experience to the repair of bone and soft tissues.
Orthomimetics’ develops products for regenerative medicine, with its initial focus being on cartilage, ligament, tendon and meniscal repair using a novel, natural biological scaffold material to support the simultaneous repair of soft and hard tissue, such as cartilage and bone respectively.
Since the founding of the company in March 2005 Dr Lynn has successfully made the transition from academic to entrepreneur, leading the company from inception, through closure of £5.0 million in Series A funding, to its current position of 11 full time employees. CE mark for Orthomimetics’ first product, Chondromimetic, is expected by the end of 2008. This will allow the company to initiate clinical trials in humans and open the path to full commercialisation of its initial product.
Orthomimetics has maintained its commitment to first class research in the field of biomaterials for regenerative medicine through a number of ongoing collaborations with the University of Cambridge. Having secured grant awards totalling £2.3 million, Orthomimetics is leading projects involving University departments including the Orthopaedic Research Unit at Addenbrooke’s Hospital and the Cambridge Centre for Medical Materials, to further the development of Chondromimetic and the company’s other pipeline products. Dr Lynn commented:
“It is an honour to receive this award, which is an important recognition of the efforts of our colleagues at the University of Cambridge and MIT, and of the hard work of the entire Orthomimetics team. By combining world-leading research with a strong awareness of the key steps leading to commercialisation, institutions like Cambridge and MIT have established a sustainable model for turning university-based research into products and services that benefit industry and society as a whole.”
Orthomimetics Limited is a medical technology company that specialises in the design, development, and manufacture of products for the treatment of sports injuries, trauma other conditions that affect knees, ankles and other articular joints. Formed in 2005 as the first spin-out venture from the Cambridge-MIT Institute, the company is bringing to market a line of medical-device products designed to improve the treatment outcome of first-line surgical procedures for the regenerative repair of articular cartilage, meniscus, ligament and tendon injuries using natural biomaterials. These products are engineered to be compatible with existing surgical techniques and to work in combination with emerging cell- and biologics-based products.
