HYFACOL is protected by patent that cover the manufacture and valuable, unique material properties of a new family of photoinduced collagen networks. The patent is fully owned by the University of Leeds with the academic founders named as the inventors and has been granted in the US (2018) and Europe (2022), with the latter covering France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, and the UK.

Our team has developed this IP over the past 10 years as a collaboration between the Oral Biology Division of the School of Dentistry and the Clothworkers’ Centre for Textile Materials Innovation for Healthcare (CCTMIH) hosted by the School of Design. We have worked alongside Appleyard Lees, an internationally recognised firm of patent attorneys to ensure not only is our novel IP protected but that we have full freedom to operate.

Through this joint cross-disciplinary research and development framework, we have been developing, modelling, and testing pre-clinically in vitro and in vivo a platform of customizable and versatile collagen networks targeting the repair or regeneration of soft and hard tissues, generating valuable new IP.