7 July 2014
The latest Scotland Group public lecture was held at the University of Aberdeen on 27 May 2014. Mr Jordan Conway (pictured right), co-founder and operations R&D manager of SIRAKOSS, a company based at the university, gave a compelling lecture entitled 'SIRAKOSS - the Skeleton of a Science Spinout Company'.
Conway introduced SIRAKOSS, founded in 2010 as a University of Aberdeen spin out company. The company specialises in synthetic bone graft substitutes for use in orthopaedic surgery. The surgical need for bone substitutes has increased over recent decades due to a global ageing population and requirements of these people to remain active. SIRAKOSS identified this need and is focussed on producing affordable, reproducible and highly effective synthetic materials on a large scale in order to meet this demand. Conway went on to highlight the science behind conventional graft materials such as synthetics, allografts and autograft materials, along with the advantages and disadvantages of each.
In his talk, Conway explained how SIRAKOSS started up, and many of the challenges faced by the team along the way, from the initial idea, to obtaining proof of concept funding and formation of the company. Staffing and maintaining intellectual property costs as well as a changing regulatory pathway in the US have been some of the biggest challenges the young company has faced, as well as securing the investment required to carry out the next stage in their ground breaking developments.
Shona Rydderch, Scotland Group Committee
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