TEN4CARE · Tendon Engineering for Comprehensive Advanced Rehabilitation and Enhancement

Every year, around 33 million musculoskeletal injuries are reported, 50% involving tendon and ligament injuries. Due to their diverse aetiology, there is no “one-fits-all” solution. TEN4CARE means a crucial opportunity for the EU Material and MedTech Industries to solve this challenge, by providing a technologically advanced, biomaterial-based medical device that can be applicable in the worst prognostic scenarios, generating a wide impact on the citizens health and wellbeing but also on the sustainability, resilience and business opportunities for the whole industrial sector. We aim to achieve tendon integrity by amplifying the recruitment of cells from surrounding tissues and refining their homing capabilities. This effort will drive the production of extracellular matrix, effectively replacing compromised or absent tissue. The objective is to tackle health complexities linked to tendon and ligament disorders, promoting rapid recovery for acute or chronic conditions. TEN4CARE will develop an innovative strategy for tendon tissue engineering through the design of a medical device based on electromagnetic-responsive shape memory 4D nanocomposite fibrous hydrogel and a minimally invasive surgery to inject and anchor it to bridge tendons/ligaments, able to be implanted using minimally invasive surgery that can be a game changer, as will combine enhanced structural properties, shape memory, antibacterial activity and regenerative capabilities, driven by external forces like magnetic and electric fields. We will get a GMP validated production process, coupled with a scale up, industrially-driven strategy and an early regulatory planning, completed by a regulatory roadmap for the sector and the implied communities; a detailed evaluation of Safety and Sustainability based on SSbD concepts, guiding our developments but also generating general guidelines and discussion for the whole sector and business models and exploitation plans for the transfer of the TEN4CARE products.