As tissue-engineers we understand the mechanisms by which the body heals itself. We understand that cartilage takes a long time to heal. There is very low blood-flow. But why does skin, with a very abundant blood-flow, form a scar that remains for life? The reason is that the body is trying to protect itself from losing blood and has to do so quickly. Our platelets aggregate and an unorganized mess of fibrous tissue stops the leak. But why does this lead to the formation of a scar?

The answer was, that even though we have signaling cells that let the body know there is an injury to repair, the scar tissue prevents the signals that the damaged tissue is sending in the form of cytokines and morphogens to the bodies own stem cells which directs them to repair the defect.

We, at Novatend (Pty) Ltd have developed a way to preserve these signaling proteins and bound them to our own biocompatible natural scaffold. The body recognizes these signals and our own stem cells home in on the site of implantation where they facilitate remodeling and strengthening. We don't even particularly tell them what to do, they just do what millions of years of evolution has told them to do. We just tell the body that there is a problem, and exactly where it is.

We have created a lot of value with both our manufacturing and product-specific intellectual property. Through our first-generation line of products we create a technology platform for our clients to capture that value.