Osteopore signs deal to distribute medical implant products through German and Austrian markets

Bone healing biotech Osteopore (ASX: OSX) has signed an exclusive two-year agreement with medical device distributor MTG Medizintechnik Göhl to promote and sell its products in Germany and Austria.

Under the terms of the agreement, MTG will market Osteopore’s range of products for craniofacial procedures, as well as patient-specific implants.

The company’s Osteoplug, Osteoplug-C and Osteomesh products already have European regulatory approval which enables MTG to immediately begin efforts to engage with the region’s doctors and hospitals.

Osteopore will work closely with MTG to provide training and support sales representatives to facilitate ongoing promotion to surgeons across Germany to the targeted segments.

MTG already has in place nationwide sales and clinical support coverage with developed expertise for the promotion of current and future Osteopore products.

The terms of today’s agreement do not contain binding minimum sales thresholds.

Milestone development

Osteopore chief executive officer Khoon Seng Goh said the agreement was a milestone development although the company was not in a position to forecast sales revenue arising from product sales at this stage.

“We are pleased that after over 12 years of clinical co-operation with German surgeons and researchers, we can now provide [our] products for wider use in Germany’s hospitals for the treatment of local patients,” he said.

German market

Osteopore has established relationships with the German market in the fields of collaborative research and clinical development.

Many of these partnerships were forged through the development stages of the company’s medical implants, which combine biomimetic tissue science with proprietary 3D printing and materials technology.

The bioresorbable implants provide a “scaffold” to assist tissue and bone reconstruction as well as restoration, and dissolve over time to leave only natural bone tissue.

Most notably Osteopore enabled the first paediatric patient-specific skull reconstruction on an 11-year-old child at Munich University Hospital in 2008.

The company’s products have also been used for a tibia replacement procedure in 2009 and an adult patient-specific skull reconstruction in a 65-year-old in 2012 at the country’s Klinikum rechts der Isar, der Technischen Universität München.

Quarterly revenue

Despite ongoing challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, Osteopore reported strong sales growth for the three months to end September.

Revenue for the quarter hit $407,878, representing a 40% increase over the previous corresponding period and highlighting consistent demand for medical implants despite ongoing disruptions in the healthcare sector.

The revenue takes Osteopore’s total sales for the year to date to over $1.01 million.

US distribution deal

In July, Osteopore secured an agreement with California-based cranial bone fixation specialist Bioplate Inc to promote and sell its products into the US.

The agreement provides Osteopore with an established network of health professionals, hospitals and services, as well as the sales and client support needed to gain traction in that market.

Bioplate has since begun marketing Osteopore’s range across California, Texas, Wyoming, Ohio, Arizona, Indiana and Puerto Rico.

The company said it would sign additional commercial partnerships to distribute products into US regions not covered by the Bioplate agreement.

Technology licence

Also in July, Osteopore signed an exclusive option to licence novel 3D printed modular bone implant technology being developed at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

The technology complements Osteopore’s current bone regeneration products and has shown early stage success with the regrowth of long bone defects in patients who have lost more than six centimetres of bone to injury or disease.

QUT and Osteopore will initially collaborate on the generation of clinical data to support and facilitate a regulatory submission to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the US Food and Drug Administration and European regulators.

The parties will work on de-risking the technology before evaluating the potential opportunity for acquisition of the technology by Osteopore.

If successful, Osteopore will have the option to secure exclusive commercialisation rights via a further technology licensing agreement.

Research collaboration

In September, Osteopore signed a research collaboration agreement with the National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine’s Department of Surgery and the National University Hospital.

The partnership will investigate the potential for Osteopore’s 3D printed implants to be used in mandibular reconstruction and will gather adequate data for future regulatory submissions.