TBF

Veröffentlicht am: 15.10.2020 17:58:14
Kategorie : Actualités

Recently affiliated to Groupe Lépine and about to launch a promising innovation, TBF is however not a beginner on the market.

It was 30 years ago in the United-States of America that everything began. During the AAOS congress, Patrick Pfaifer met Dr. Moore who managed a bone bank and presented to Patrick lyophilized bone products.

At that time in France, revision was used regularly in the orthopaedic surgery. The lack of bone-void filling products was a real pitfall for the activity. Along the years, orthopaedists had found a way to save the femoral heads they would cut during the operations. They were placed in a freezer inside the operating room and the staff would carefully make the blood work to prevent the samples from contamination.

At the time, little or no legislation was ruling over this common practice.

Willing to bring a safer and more available solution, Patrick Pfaifer went into partnership with PCTB (Pacific Coast Tissue Bank) and started importing femoral heads in France. The demand was high but it was lacking stock. Indeed, the allografts only came from deceased people, so between 15 and 20 a year. In order to expand his offer and fill the demand, PP suggested PCTB to supply them with femoral heads from THA so they would be treated with the validated procedures and then distributed in France.

The company TBF (Tissue Bank of France) was about to be created.

TBF quickly decided to treat themselves the femoral heads they cut and got in touch with the French health minister Simone Veil and with the Dr JF Mattei, then in charge with the health issues with the minister. They both suggested TBF to have their products validated by the Pasteur Institute.

The process was long but 20 years later the same elaborating technique which was never disputed, helped bringing to the market over 200 000 femoral heads.

TBF is proud to have brought a safe solution of bone-void filling to the French orthopaedics.