Elastagen Pty Ltd is a clinical stage medical device company that is pioneering Elastatherapy™ using the human protein elastin to naturally repair and augment the skin.
The company has arisen out of patented research conducted by Prof. Tony Weiss’s group at the University of Sydney and their first clinical trials have demonstrated the biocompatability and safety of their synthetic human elastin. Elastagen is based in Sydney, Australia, and is a venture-backed private company. Investors include ATP Innovations, Brandon Capital and GBS Ventures.
They received $2M in the inaugural NSW Health Medical Devices Fund in 2013 and another $4m in the 2016 round. In 2015 Prof. Tony Weiss won a $1 million Translation Award from the Wellcome Trust to fast track their elastin-based synthetic skin scaffolds to clinical trials. This allowed them to refine and optimise its physical and biological properties, so this innovative material can be tested for its safety and efficacy in repairing full thickness skin wounds.
Producing a material like this required the research team to model elastin down to its smallest functional components using advanced computational methods on the National Computational Infrastructure’s (NCI) supercomputer, explains lead researcher and Elastagen co-founder Professor Tony Weiss. The team also modelled the protein’s behaviour in water, to understand exactly how it works inside the body’s aqueous environment.
Professor Weiss says, “It is incredibly useful for us to understand how all of these components fit together, and how we can get them to self-assemble. The only way for us to get this understanding is with computer modelling.
“There is a big step up in complexity when you go from modelling the individual components to modelling the entire combined structure and its interplay with water. But that’s what we needed to do to figure out how we were going to be able to put the elastin protein together ourselves.”
Prof. Weiss’s research team also use a range of microscopy techniques including scanning electron and confocal microscopy at Microscopy Australia (MA). These have been essential to the work of Prof. Weiss’s team and Elastagen in studying elastin and their different product structures and how well these interact with cells. Prof. Weiss’s research team continue to use MA as they keep working to understand the details of how elastin functions. This enables them to develop new applications for this amazing protein including MeTro, a UV-settable surgical glue made of modified elastin.
Elastagen was sold to Allergan in 2018 for $120M+ to fully commercialise Elastagen’s discoveries.