Israel’s bacteria resistant materials startup Nobio Ltd has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market its anti-bacterial composite for dental filling designed to remain in the teeth for decades.
The company has received approval for two products and is awaiting approval for two more. Nobio said dental fillings are just the start for its technology, can be applied to the eradication of microbes in any field: medical equipment; contact lenses; prevention of wear in industry, water coolers and more.
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“We chose to start with dentistry because the time to market is short and the need is very clear, and not because this is a particularly large market – the medical device market is bigger,” said CEO Yoram Ashery, formerly CEO of Endochoice and Aposense and a senior manager at Given Imaging.
Fillings carried out when part of a tooth has become decayed from microbial contamination. Currently, dentists use white fillings that are similar in color to the tooth. These fillings, however, are less resistant to bacteria than the metallic fillings, such as gold, that were common in the past.
Nobio has developed a white filling that resists bacteria. The company said that the advantage of its anti-bacterial materials is that they are not solvents, and therefore work long-term, and they are also non-toxic.
Founded in 2015 by Prof. Ervin Weiss, head of the Department of Prosthodontics at the Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center in Jerusalem with the support of Hadasit – the Technology Transfer Company of Hadassah Medical Organization.
Nobio has raised in 2018 $3.5 million in A round led by the aMoon fund, headed by Marius Nacht and Dr. Yair Schindel, and Ole Jensen, a dental surgeon and co-founder of the ClearChoice network of dental implant clinics in the US, which was sold to Sun Capital Partners. The company has raised a total of $5.6 million to date.
Dental fillings are a $1.4 billion global market. 200 million tooth restoration procedures are carried out in the US annually. Two-thirds of these are replacements of previous restorations. That is because of penetration by bacteria and the return of dental caries. The cost of replacement fillings in the US is estimated at $5 billion annually, and recurring caries is the main cause of tooth loss.
