The French startup NORAKER develops first-in-class implants for regenerative orthopaedic surgery to fully heal patients suffering from a bone, ligament, or tendon injury. With the EIC-funded project REBOOT, NORAKER aims to create the market for bone regeneration surgery. The company is based in Lyon, in the heart of the country's pharmaceutical and medical region (PharmaValley) and won the France Relance Programme recently. This new economic programme is part of France's response to the COVID crisis and supports several sectors, including the health industry.
There are 8 million bone traumas every year in the EU, mainly affecting active people and about 1 million children. 20% of all bone injuries require hospitalization and cost 2 billion euros to healthcare payers each year. Implants always leave a mark, and a second surgery is needed in nearly one-third of the cases. As the population ages, finding materials to enable citizens to live a longer active life with a solid bony structure is a top priority. And in this context, bone biomaterials play a vital role.
The biomaterial company Noraker has developed the first bioactive composite fixation implant, made of a well-tolerated absorbable polymer, combined with a revolutionary synthetic biomaterial able to form bone where it is missing: the bioactive glass. This implant, which addressed the fixation of the anterior cruciate ligament in the knee, showed bone-rebooting performances well above the state-of-the-art.
The new grant of €1.26M provided by the French Public Bank, BPI, under the France Relance Programme, will help Noraker carry out its industrial investments and accelerate its innovation projects further. We spoke with Céline Saint-Olive Baque about this grant. She highlighted the company's expansion in the International Market and the success achieved with the commercialization of their products across borders.
"We will invest in concrete equipment, such as custom-made ovens, to increase our industrial capability. We will also relocate some critical manufacturing steps currently subcontracted outside the EU to support our growth and customers' needs. Our products are currently commercialized in 40 countries, on all continents, with a growth of 80% between 2019 and 2021".
Noraker is also planning to diversify its product portfolio and invest in R&D projects to bring innovative medical devices for regenerative medicine:
"The grant will allow us to continue investing massively in R&D and new products, as we've always done since the beginning of the company. The successes of the products on the market and the success of the REBOOT project paved the way for new projects and solutions for regenerative medicine. The grant from the French Public Bank, BPI, is a public acknowledgement of the benefits and usefulness of our solutions and a public recognition for the market and all stakeholders", concluded Céline.
With these grants, the French Government aims to strengthen national production and support specific strategic industries on French territory. From the beginning, Noraker has been supported by the local environment and won several prizes for its innovations - Jeune Entreprise Innovante, label Novacité and the national award of "RMC SME Trophies". The company also attended several EIC business acceleration services matchmaking events, including the EIC Corporate Day with L'Oréal in Paris. The Reboot project received a Phase 1 and Phase 2 grant from the EIC. The total Phase 2 grant amount is 2.4M€.
DISCLAIMER: This information is provided in the interest of knowledge sharing and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission, or any other organisation.