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Bone mimic startup wins $25,000 at Slaight New Venture competition

By Hanna Lee

Artin Biomed, a medical startup created by Ryerson alumni, has won $25,000 at the Slaight New Venture competition. Led by Samin Eftekhari and Madlen Cumandra, the company has developed a material that mimics human bone.

“We are trying to replace metallic screws, which create problems in the body and have to be removed after the bone healing process with biodegradable screws,” said Eftekhari, who got her PhD at Ryerson in chemical engineering.

The business is also trying to use the material to help with bone graft treatment. If successful, it will help alleviate chronic pain in patients and substantially improve orthopaedic surgeries.

Cumandra, a Ted Rogers marketing graduate and the company’s chief marketing officer, said that Artin Biomed’s involvement with the Slaight New Venture competition was “a lot of hard work.”

“We spent four nights staying up and finishing up our application. Then we had seven days before the presentation to create our first pitch.”

The competition, hosted by the Ted Rogers School of Management, awarded $25,000 each to the top two entrepreneurs to present their business ideas to a panel of professionals.

Cumandra said that the money they won will be used to get their product “to the pre-approved selling point.” They want to sell it to “vets and biomedical companies for research purposes.”

Eftekhari said that being stationed at the Biomedical Zone has given them more access to helpful resources.

“We have easy access to knowledge reserves and surgeons,” she said. “We can directly interview [surgeons] because they are the users of the product and pinpoint the pains which they have during orthopaedic and plastic surgery.”

She also said that Ryerson’s supportive environment was especially helpful for women interested in the engineering or entrepreneurial fields, as well.

“As a woman entrepreneur … I suggest to the engineers to not be too scared of bringing their own innovations and ideas to the real world, especially at Ryerson. All it takes is a little hard work and commitment to make all our visions true.”

CORRECTIONA previous version of this story, published online on April 22, said that Artin Biomed joined the Biomedical Zone after winning the Slaight New Venture competition. This was incorrect – the company has been part of the zone since October 2015. The Eyeopener regrets this error.

A member of the company also contacted us to clarify a quote by Cumandra. The company directly interviews surgeons, not patients, as users of their product.

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