4Tissue® is a regenerative medicine spin-off project of Ghent University focussing on the development of a medical device for breast tissue regeneration.

Current tissue reconstruction strategies such as breast implants, lipofilling and microsurgical free tissue transplantation are the most often applied procedures for repairing soft tissue defects due to surgical resections such as mastectomy/lumpectomy, following breast cancer. However, there are numerous drawbacks associated with the current approaches. Therefore, Gelgraft Medical offers an innovative, minimally invasive strategy overcoming these shortcomings.

Further building on decades of experience in the fields of polymer synthesis, biomaterial development and tissue regeneration acquired by an interdisciplinary team constituting worldwide renowned plastic surgeons, tissue engineering experts and polymer chemists, our first product, GelInject, a medical device class III, was developed. GelInject offers a minimally invasive personalized regenerative solution and is currently in preclinical phase.

The key benefits are:

• A patient-friendly, minimally invasive approach due to its injectability
• Increased volume retention of current lipofilling procedures from 50% up to 80%
• Reduction of required re-interventions (surgery, hospitalization, anesthesia)
• Lower burden for patients and healthcare professionals
• Strong reduction of cost for patient and society
• Biodegradable resulting in 100% natural breast tissue