France-based bioprinting company Poietis has been granted a third major patent for its bioprinting technology from the European Patent Office. The patent, “Laser printing method and device for implementing said method,” covers the company’s bioprinting process and specifically its method of printing “upwards.”
In October 2018, Poietis announced the commercial launch of its 4D bioprinting platform: the Next Generation Bioprinting (NGB) system. The technology, which had been in development for four years, is designed for tissue engineering applications and is available in two formats, one for R&D applications and one for clinical use.
The recent patent awarded by the European Patent Office, No. EP3233499, is the third that the French bioprinting company has received for its technology. The previous two are entitled “Bioprinting Station assembly comprising such bioprinting station and bioprinting method” and “Method for laser printing biological components and device for implementing said method.”
The former, Patent No. EP2542659, covers the adaptation of the printing pattern to the receiving substrate and is in effect in Europe, the United States and Japan. The second patent, No. EP3234102, covers the laser-assisted bioprinting and multimodal bioprinting processes.
“We were the first to explore the industrial potential of laser-assisted bioprinting technology in various applications,” said Fabien Guillemot, President and CSO of Poietis. “The granting of this series of European patents further supports Poietis’ position in the field of 3D bioprinting.”
According to the bioprinting firm, it holds the exclusive exploitation rights for all application fields related to the technology covered in the three major patents. This is in accordance with a licensing agreement with INSERM, the University of Bordeaux and Aquitaine Science Transfert, SATT Aquitaine, signed in 2014.
“The [granting] of these patents strengthens Poietis’ intellectual property assets,” added Bruno Brisson, General Manager and VP Business Development at Poietis. “It is also an additional protection of important technological bricks that are integrated into the NGB-R, next-gen bioprinting systems that we commercialize now.”
