WHO WE ARE
Orthox is a privately held UK company developing tissue regenerative implants which enable patients who have suffered injuries to their knee cartilage to return to a fully active, pain-free lifestyle.
Founded on superlative science, developed by industry experts
Orthox was founded in 2009 by life scientist, Dr Nick Skaer, and knee surgeon, Professor Oliver Kessler MD, to exploit the potential of research into silk proteins by Professor Fritz Vollrath’s Oxford Silk Group at The University of Oxford.
Based on findings published in Nature in 2001 Vollrath and co-researcher David Knight identified the mechanisms by which spiders achieve the exceptional mechanical properties in the silk fibres they spin and postulated how this could be emulated using silkmoth silks to create commercial quantities of super-strong fibres.
As Chief Scientist and then CEO of Vollrath and Knight’s spin out company, Oxford Biomaterials, Dr Nick Skaer co-invented and developed the FibroFix™ technology platform. In 2009 he secured the exclusive licenses to exploit FibroFix™ in orthopaedic tissue repair and founded Orthox with Professor Oliver Kessler, a leading knee surgeon and orthopaedic industry veteran.
Originally seeded through awards from the Wellcome Trust, Innovate UK, NIHR and the EU, Orthox secured first Series A finance in 2015 and built a Board and Management team with validated FibroFix™ technology in key safety and efficacy trials before launching clinical trials of lead product FibroFix™ Cartilage in 2022.
March 2001
Professor Fritz Vollrath and Dr David Knight at the University of Oxford publish their seminal paper on the Liquid Crystalline spinning of Spider Silk
January 2002
Vollrath and Knight spin out Oxford Biomaterials Ltd to further their work on commercialising silk protein solutions for biomedical applications.
March 2005
Dr Nick Skaer appointed CEO of Oxford Biomaterials and secures €1.6m award from the EU to develop “Silkbone”: A silk based orthopaedic tissue repair platform.
May 2008
Dr Skaer secures licenses to the Orthopaedic technology developed at Oxford Biomaterials and founds Orthox with Prof Oliver Kessler, MD a leading knee surgeon and former Director of Orthbiologics at global major, Stryker Orthopaedics.
January 2009
Orthox secures a £1.6m award from UK Healthcare Charitable foundation Wellcome Trust to seed the Company and launch operations. See press release here
May 2009
Orthox featured on BBC1’s ‘The One Show’ alongside Sir David Attenborough, broadcast to over 7 million viewers.
June 2010
Orthox secures £469k in multiple awards from the Technology Strategy Board to progress FibroFix™ Meniscus and FibroFix™ Cartilage development programmes. See press release here
February 2011
Orthox featured as part of the ‘Innovation!’ series on EuroNews broadcast to over 8 million viewers.
May 2012
Orthox led consortium are awarded a £411k grant under the Technology Strategy Board Advanced Materials funding programme to further develop and evaluate Orthox’s FibroFix™ composite materials technology.
October 2013
Orthox Secures Funds Approaching £3 million from Wellcome Trust and Technology Strategy Board to Support Clinical Development Programme. See press release here
February 2014
International News Station CNN feature FibroFix technology on their“Make, Create, Innovate” broadcast.
October 2014
Orthox receives patent approvals in key territories with grant of patents no. 2619693 (Canada); 5603857 (Japan); ZL200980125230.8 (China).
May 2015
Orthox and FibroFix™ technology featured in the Guardian Newspaper and Guardian Online and the BBC website
November 2015
Orthox relocates to enlarged manufacturing and office facilities on Milton Park. The bespoke facility at 66 Innovation Drive has been fitted out to accommodate Orthox’s unique manufacturing process and allows for expansion of the workforce.
January 2016
Orthox receive further grants of lead product patent WO/2007/020449 in key territories, the United States (9229662) and China (1849712) and the first grant of WO/2013/057497 which has been awarded in Australia (2012324641).
April 2016
Orthox completes first close of £4.25m Series A finance from a syndicate of experienced life sciences investors including Oxford Investment Consultants, Parkwalk Advisors and Atmosclear Investments.
July 2017
Patent WO/2007/020449 granted in the UK, Germany, France, Switzerland and Ireland under registered grant no. 1948256 completing grants in all global territories for the patent family.
August 2018
Orthox extend their Series A finance round with a further £1.5m investment led by existing major shareholder Atmosclear Investments.
October 2018
Orthox secure a major £1.1m funding award from the NIHR i4i programme to take lead product FibroFix™ Cartilage into clinical trials.
June 2020
Orthox secure prestigious €2.5m EIC Accelerator Award to deliver a European Clinical Study of FibroFix™ Cartilage.
July 2020
Apatech founder and experienced orthobiologics industry expert, Dr Tom Buckland joins as Commercial Strategy Director and medtech industry veteran and former World-wide VP of R&D at Depuy, Dr Allan Ritchie, is appointed to the Board of Directors.
August 2020
EIT Health select Orthox as one of 11 recipients from 121 applicants for a €500k award from their Pandemic Start Up Rescue Programme
February 2021
Orthox receives first grants for 3 new patent families WO/2018/215752, WO/2018/215756 and WO/2018/224800 providing protection for these novel inventions with multiple further patents pending in these families across other global territories.
September 2021
Orthox is selected from over 1100 applicants to be one of the 25 strong cohort of companies on the $500,000 US Medtech Accelerator program with Orthox’s promotional video selected as a finalist in the MedTech Innovator Accelerator Best Video competition.
February 2022
Orthox completes a further close of $4.3m on its $12.5m Series A Financing for Clinical Trials of Knee Cartilage Repair FibroFix™ Product Platform. See press release here
July 2022
Orthox Announces MHRA Authorisation for Clinical Trial of Knee Cartilage Repair FibroFix™ Product Platform. Key patent on implantable tissue repair devices granted in major economies. See press release here