KEY POINTS:
Otago and Canterbury university scientists have developed a still-secret metal alloy that slowly disappears as it heals broken bones.
The discovery has New Zealand poised to enter a multi-billion-dollar surgical-implant market and could consign traditional repairs to the past.
University of Otago researcher Dr George Dias said patients often needed painful and costly surgery to remove stainless steel and titanium repairs.
The new alloy was as strong as titanium - the gold standard in bone repair - but its mechanical properties were much closer to that of bone.
It could be made to degrade over a time that suited the repair it was designed to do. In effect, it left as new bone grew, said Dr Dias, a former maxio-facial surgeon.
Its composition would stay secret until it was patented, but it was "amazing that no one else has come up with such a simple idea".
"Honestly, when we are finally in a position to describe what we have done, you will say it all makes perfect sense," Dr Dias said.
"In the meantime yes, we are in a bit of a race against time to get the intellectual patent ... for something we think is very straightforward."
Straightforward or not, the Foundation for Research and Technology has just given the team $960,000 to make a new spinal implant.
Lead researcher Dr Mark Staiger, a senior lecturer at the University of Canterbury's mechanical engineering department, said the new alloy could treat a range of orthopaedic problems.
The search for a new material was kick-started by the "unacceptable" 45 per cent failure rate of spinal fusion devices, Dr Staiger said.
That market was the fastest-growing part of the US$17 billion medical device industry. The research had "great economic potential" for New Zealand, he said.
Dr Dias said the grant would encourage more scientists and engineers to work with biomaterials, helping New Zealand to keep pace with the world in a rapidly evolving field.
Dr Dias, with Dr Phil Peplow, burst into that field in 2005, when they went public with a bone-like material they had developed from a protein extracted from wool.
The material could be used in structural repair but would be absorbed into the body as it encouraged new bone to grow.
Dr Dias said the material, which was sold to a biotechnology company, was in the later stages of getting the approvals it needed to be released to the market.
- OTAGO DAILY TIMES
