Schwartz Biomedical, LLC

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Posted: May 01st, 2007 FORT WAYNE, IN — Schwartz Biomedical subsidiary, BioPoly LLC, has been awarded $2MM from Indiana’s 21st Century Fund to develop a new orthopaedic implant, called BioPoly™ RS (ReSurfacing), which will be used to replace only the damaged portion of a joint (i.e. knee, hip, shoulder, phalanges, etc…) as opposed to the entire joint. Patients receiving this new implant will not have to put up with chronic pain that many arthritis sufferers endure while they wait for their joint to deteriorate to the point where they are total joint replacement candidates.

Posted: Apr 23rd, 2007 Tissue engineering. It sounds exotic to the point of science fiction. It's real, though. As manager of DePuy Orthopaedics Inc.'s orthobiologics department, Herb Schwartz saw the future in using regenerative technologies in joint replacement procedures such as partial knee surgery. Yet, instead of developing products for DePuy, Schwartz, a Berne native and Purdue University graduate with a doctorate in biomechanical engineering from the University of Cincinnati, chucked the security of the big corporation for the uncertainty, but potentially lucrative life, of a biomedical entrepreneur. That was January 2004. Today, his five-person firm has a suite of offices and labs at the Northeast Indiana Innovation Center on Stellhorn Road and is close to bringing to market its first product. BioDuct, a technology and subsidiary of Schwartz Biomedical, is a product that heals damaged meniscus tissue in the knee. Once it is cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, possibly before the end of the year, BioDuct will be the only product of its kind in the marketplace and could provide an alternative to current partial knee procedures that remove tissue.

Bare bones method Herb Schwartz, president and CEO of Schwartz Biomedical, LLC, credits his industry with attracting investors. "We don't do traditional orthopedics," Schwartz describes. "What we do is develop regeneration technologies. Rather than replace the tissue, we try to get it to heal or regenerate. The area we work in, we're fortunate that it's not only high-tech products, which is interesting, but what we do benefits people." Schwartz Biomedical and its two subsidiaries (BioDuct, LLC and BioPoly) have earned IEDC funding. BioDuct was founded in 2004, supported in part by venture capital tax credit money. In addition, a 21st Century Research and Technology Fund grant (which fosters business and job creation in the state) helped Schwartz Biomedical establish BioPoly that same year.

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