Medical company LaunchPad Medical Inc reported on Tuesday the receipt of the follow-on grant of up to USD1.8m from the Michigan-Pittsburgh-Wyss Regenerative Medicine Resource Center and funded by the National Institute of Dental and Cranial Research to improve the translation of promising tissue engineering and regenerative medicine technologies for dental, oral and craniofacial clinical practice.

This grant, which follows the two prior grants from the Michigan-Pittsburgh-Wyss Regenerative Medicine Resource Center, will allow the company to conduct a pivotal animal study as well as generate all the other required data to file an Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) application with the US FDA to start a clinical trial.

Approximately 30% of dental bone grafting cases existing graft materials fail to achieve the desired clinical results increasing the overall time and cost of these procedures. These patients must undergo a ridge augmentation procedure in which particulate-based bone graft materials are placed using membranes and fixation aids to contain the graft during the healing process.

The market research conducted in conjunction with Avenues, a marketing company involved with the resource center, confirmed the clinical need for an improved bone graft solution, concluded the company.