Printymed working on a Heart Valve Prothesis

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Business–LIAA
biomedicine, LIAA
Printymed working on a Heart Valve Prothesis

The biomedical startup PrintyMed has attracted two grants from the Competence Center for Smart Materials and Technologies, with a total amount exceeding 800 thousand euros. It is planned that the implementation of these projects will start sales activities next year.

So far, PrintyMed has already attracted various grants. Including initial investments in research, two million euros have been invested in technology development. The company also won third place in the innovative ideas competition Idea Cup 2023. Like any startup, PrintyMed is constantly looking for opportunities to attract investments – even at this moment.

Working on a heart valve prosthesis

One of the grants is intended for developing a heart valve prosthesis using artificial spider silk. This project aims to develop a manufacturing method and prototype for heart valve prostheses, create new technology for printing artificial spider silk while preserving its biological properties, and evaluate the biomedical properties of artificial spider silk. The total amount of this project is 447.2 thousand euros.

PrintyMed co-founder Jekaterina Romanova states that 1/3 of global deaths are related to cardiovascular diseases. To save lives, more than 300 thousand heart valve replacement surgeries are performed each year. It is predicted that in a few years, this number could even increase to 500 thousand. Approximately 6000 organs are available for transplantation each year, but 100 thousand people are already waiting for an organ transplant – every 10 minutes, another person joins the waiting list. Every day, 22 people die while waiting, but even when a patient reaches transplantation, there is a high risk of organ rejection due to autoimmune reactions.

“Our heart valve prostheses made from spider silk will not trigger rejection processes in the human body, making them suitable for creating artificial organs in 3D bioprinters. This is also our most ambitious goal, which this grant will help achieve. Of course, there is still a long way to go – at least three to five years,” says J. Romanova.

Currently, PrintyMed has developed a prototype heart valve from artificial spider silk, which is the simplest “part” of the heart. It has been tested with rat blood, and it has been concluded that the valve performs its functions.

Researching new membranes

One option to get to market faster is collaboration with the local startup Cellbox Labs, which develops organs on chips. Therefore, the second grant is intended for developing a cell-binding membrane that could be used in organ-on-chip applications. The grant amount for this project is 362.7 thousand euros.

Romanova notes that the global organ-on-chip market was 68.63 billion dollars in 2023. It is projected to reach 448.92 billion dollars by 2031. The main reason for this growth is the demand to use organs on chips instead of animals in screening new drug substances, as well as the use of this technology in studies of human disease models, which require the recreation of multi-organ microchips.

“Due to the increasing demand, companies producing organs on chips are actively looking for alternative membrane materials that can be successfully used in multi-organ microchips. Artificial spider silk is a biocompatible material with a high cell-binding ability, making it particularly suitable for creating a membrane that will enable the development of new and more complex organs on chips,” she explains.

Exploring opportunities in the cosmetics industry as well

Artificial spider silk can also be used in liquid form, but it has different properties then. In this form, it resembles a hydrogel that could be used, for example, in wound treatment or in the production of regenerative cosmetics. J. Romanova explains that from the regulatory requirements perspective, cosmetics is a relatively simple industry to enter with a new ingredient, but the market is very saturated, and competition is immense.

“We are aware of our capacity and are analyzing in which direction we can gain greater returns with less investment and start selling. Currently, those are membranes,” says J. Romanova.

Mimicking the process of how spider silk is “produced” in nature

PrintyMed has created artificial spider silk in a biomimetic way from the technology developed at the Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis, mimicking the process as it occurs in nature. In the laboratory, there are bacteria that produce proteins, and further, with the bioconjugation method, it mimics the process of how a spider “produces” silk. Although the PrintyMed method does not use animals, the company replicates all processes in the laboratory just as a spider would.

The artificial spider silk produced in Latvia differs in the method of its extraction and the properties of the material. J. Romanova explains that other artificial spider silk producers obtain it from chemicals by combining them in the correct way. In such a case, the artificially produced spider silk using chemical methods is not compatible with the human body, so it cannot be used in implants, valves, etc.

PrintyMed currently produces a volume of up to 10 grams of artificial spider silk at a time. Although the volume is small, J. Romanova explains that it is already a huge step forward. Future scaling of the technology to produce 100 or 1000 grams of this raw material will be simpler.