HAPPE Spine announces that it has received notice of allowance from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for patent claims providing broad protections for its unique material and manufacturing technology providing fully porous, bioactive polyetheretherketone (PEEK) technology (U.S. Pat. App. No. 14/078,614).
 
HAPPE, a company focused on developing next-generation orthopedic implants, is one of the portfolio companies of Genesis Innovation Group and its cultivate(MD) Capital Funds.  
 
Ryan K. Roeder, Ph.D., of the University of Notre Dame, along with HAPPE’s engineering team, conceptualized modifying PEEK to be both porous and bioactive to provide an optimal material for orthopedic applications throughout the body and together they are developing product solutions unlike anything on the market. 
 
Dr. Roeder said, “I am extremely pleased that we’ve received another patent protecting our technology for porous and bioactive PEEK.  A key to our technology, recognized in this patent, is that our hydroxyapatite particles are exposed on pore surfaces creating a hydrophilic, micro-roughened and bioactive surface that promotes bone ingrowth. Furthermore, due to a whisker-like shape, our hydroxyapatite particles are firmly embedded in the PEEK matrix for long-term bioactivity and mechanical reinforcement.” 
 
The technology marries the desired characteristics of porosity and bioactivity into a strong, osteointegrative, and radiolucent material with much skeletal versatility.
 
Doug Snell, Engineering Director at HAPPE Spine said, “It is exciting to see all aspects of the HAPPE porous PEEK technology coming to fruition in our cervical interbody implant, which is the first of our many spine and orthopedic product applications. The proprietary forming process, which Dr. Roeder proved out at the University of Notre Dame, has now been implemented into a production environment that meets all future growth needs. Forming a contiguous construct of load-bearing dense hydroxyapatite PEEK seamlessly integrated into a 75 percent porous HA PEEK scaffold is a challenging task. Our team has come together and created a robust process that forms this complex structure reliably and it is now a highly scalable production process able to meet the industry standard and it’s demand.”
 
The manufacturing method enables the implant density or porosity to be advantageously varied to optimize both osteointegration and bio-mechanical loading and the technology opens the door to many new implant designs.