The Australian government announced that Manhattan Scientifics (OTCBB:MHTX) and its existing industrial partner, Carpenter Technology Corporation (NYSE:CRS) have joined with a new industrial partner, Cochlear Ltd. (ASX:COH) to create customized metals for use in human beings advancing the bionic age. "We're living longer and we need new parts," said Marvin Maslow, Founder Manhattan Scientifics.
The mission of the group is to create metals that integrate with human tissue, different from today's state of the art prosthetics where human parts and mechanical man-made parts work together but retain their separate identity. Dr. Terry Lowe, Chief metallurgical nanotechnology scientist at Manhattan Scientifics said, “The present art makes use of metal prosthetics at work in concert with human tissue; they supplement each other but never truly become ‘one’. The goal of the project is the blending of human parts with our new biological parts to produce long lasting integrated prosthetics that will improve the well being of our aging populations and enhance their independence.”
The joint project team includes leading biotech and materials researchers from Monash, Swinbume, The Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research and Hanover Universities, Manhattan Scientifics, Cochlear Ltd., and Carpenter Technology Corporation.
Manny Tsoupanarias, CEO of MHTX said, "Every journey begins with the first steps. Our 1st steps are to begin with our biological metal alloys to provide better solutions for dental implants ($2.0 billion wholesale market, or 8% of the $25 billion orthopedics market). Our goal is to see our new class of metals, when fully developed, positively impact medical device and prosthetics industries everywhere.” Manny continued, “Cochlear Ltd. is the world's leader in prosthetic substitutes for hearing and over time, we will hope to see our metal alloys used by Cochlear, in providing a surgically implanted hearing device to dramatically improve the ability to hear for people who are profoundly deaf or severely hard of hearing. Cochlear calls their present product `the bionic ear' and we believe our new class of biological metals will advance a bionic age.”
Leading companies comprising the $25 billion annual orthopedics space include Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, Stryker, Boston Scientifics, Zimmer, Smith & Nephew, Braun, Abbott, Cook, Nobel Biocare, Straumann, Biomet, Dentsply, Nuvasive, Globus and G.E. Healthcare.
Source: http://www.mhtx.com/