‘Sounds like science fiction’: How hi-tech sheep’s tripe is helping to heal humans
A New Zealand biotech company is turning tripe into a potential goldmine, using part of sheep stomachs to create high-tech soft tissue healing products for humans.
Aroa Bioscience has sold more than five million of its medical ‘‘devices’’ derived from sheep stomachs since first getting Food and Drug Administration approval in the US in 2014.
Once a veterinary surgeon, chief executive Brian Ward started the business in Wellington in 2008 before moving to Auckland about six years later, where Aroa is still based.
Ward worked in a range of medical device and pharmaceutical companies overseas before returning to New Zealand, where a fledgling biotech investment scene was starting to take off.
When Ward started Aroa, he attracted funding from technology investor Movac and early stage investment firm Sparkbox, along with support from Industrial Research Ltd, now Callaghan Innovation.
Fourteen years later, Aroa is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, and debt-free with $62.9 million in cash. It expects revenue to leap from $22m last year to between $34m to $37m, despite Covid disruption to its sales teams.
The products are made from a layer in the sheep’s forestomach, and provide a platform for tissue regeneration. The material is processed and stripped down but retains biological molecules that help with wound healing.
‘‘When we started the company there was a real interest in scaffolds for soft tissue regeneration, and the science behind this had come out of human tissue transplantation and using human tissues to help regenerate tissue in people,’’ Ward said. ‘‘It sounds yucky but it was cadaver-based tissue in tissue transplantation.
‘‘The big breakthrough really was scientists realised some animal tissues could be used in the same way if they were processed, so they removed the molecules that elicited immune response. ‘‘You end up with this scaffold that has a good architecture, but it also has all this biochemistry that’s conducive to building new tissue. So it sounds a bit like science fiction, but that then becomes the building block for a range of different devices for soft tissue repair.’’ Aroa has just expanded its Auckland-based manufacturing capacity with a second facility near Auckland Airport, and expects to triple annual sales to about $100m as a result.
Ward and New Zealand sales specialist Cecilia Chote say the products are cost-effective, particularly in terms of time spent in hospital or the health system, and a faster healing time for patients.
‘‘The current technology that is used internationally has been phenomenally expensive, that makes it inaccessible,’’ Chote said.
Initially the products were designed with a simple application in mind, for diabetic and venous ulcers which are difficult wounds to heal in elderly people. Over time the design has evolved and products can be used for different soft tissue regeneration ranging from hernia repair to breast reconstruction to injuries.
The company offered to help after the Whakaari/White Island eruption in December 2019, but its products were not well enough known at that point.
‘‘The clinicians dealing with the White island situation were in an unprecedented situation where they were dealing with both thermal and chemical burns. It wasn’t a time for them to be looking at other options, they needed to keep things really straightforward with that disaster,’’ Chote said.
It has taken longer than hoped to make inroads in the New Zealand market, with lockdowns limiting access to district health boards and clinicians.
The product was seen as expensive and unique, and the company needed to sit down with DHBs to explain the advancement and cost-effectiveness, Chote said.
However, multiple DHBs across the country were now on board, seeing ‘‘phenomenal results’’ in managing chronic wounds that were expensive for the health system, and a burden for the patients themselves.
‘‘The momentum now is getting where I would have wanted it, say, a year ago,’’ she said.
Aroa aimed to become a globally leading company in tissue regeneration, and not just for patients in dire circumstances.
‘‘These products can have a massive impact on people’s lives in terms of healing wounds, but they’re rationed globally because they’re so expensive,’’ Ward said.
‘‘So what we’ve done is been able to make a really high-quality product available at a much more affordable price point so that many more patients can have access to it. And we’re doing that globally.’’
Ready access to sheep anchored Aroa’s manufacturing in New Zealand and the company planned to remain based here.