Malaysian firm to set up region's first human tissue processing facility

By Ainul Huda Mohamed Saaid

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 14 -- Homegrown biotech company, Intran Technologies Sdn Bhd is collaborating with Netherlands-based medical devices group, Leader Biomedical, to establish the region’s first private-initiated human tissue processing facility in the country.

Currently, human tissue processing is carried out in Amsterdam and the company is planning to set up a similar facility here in Malaysia to better serve the Southeast Asian region.

Intran Technologies managing director M. Padmanabhan said the facility aspired to be the regional hub for research and development in tissue processing and would also be the first in the region to utilise the super critical fluid technology for processing biological tissue.

He said other tissue processing centres in the region were primarily government-initiated and utilised conventional tissue processing methods, including the three bone banks in Malaysia, namely Kuala Lumpur Hospital, University Malaya Medical Centre and Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Hospital in Kubang Kerian, which also process soft tissue.

“One of the main objectives of this project is to make allografts (tissue grafts) affordable and readily available for nations in the region," he said.

Allografts are processed tissues that can be used in wound care for diabetics, dental care in cases of tooth decay, spine care, sports injury such as tendon and ligament repair, or even where there is bone loss.

“Another goal is to give opportunities to Malaysian researchers to get a hands-on experience in the field so that they can develop competencies and pioneer new applications by using this technology (supercritical fluid),” he told Bernama here today.

Padmanabhan explained that in addition to using this technology to clean and sterilise both hard and soft tissues, the facility would offer the additional advantage of impregnating the allografts with bioactive compounds and antibiotics to enhance the efficacy of the tissue integration in the recipients.

“We already have applications available for certain range of products and indications.   

“What we are looking at are new applications and we intend to establish collaborative research with medical centres and institutions in the country to develop these (new applications) using this technology,” he said.

He disclosed that the company is the midst of establishing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Koperasi Pusat Perubatan Universiti Malaya Bhd, which will become their first strategic partner.

The joint-venture between Intran Technologies and Leader Biomedical, called Leader Biomedical Asia Pacific Sdn Bhd, will be the Malaysian subsidiary and regional sales and marketing office for Amsterdam-based Leader Biomedical Europe Holding.

“We have done the business plan, had meetings with the regulatory authorities including agencies from the Ministry of Health and the National Transplant Resource Centre. 

“We are presently meeting investors and hope that more would come on board,” Padmanabhan added. 

-- BERNAMA