UPM Biomedicals develops and supplies innovative and sustainable wood-based biomedical products for a variety of uses. Our high-quality products are derived from renewable wood sources originating from sustainably managed and certified forests. GrowDex® products are nanofibrillar cellulose hydrogels for 3D cell culturing and other biomedical applications. They are highly biocompatible with human cells and tissues – but free from any animal- or human-derived material.
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We currently focus on two application areas; clinical and life science. On clinical side our natural biocompatible hydrogels, which are free from animal-derived components, are ideally suited to serve as biomaterial in wound care, cell therapy and tissue engineering applications.
In life science our main product is GrowDex® - a bio-friendly hydrogel extracted from birch. It is a ready to use hydrogel that mimics the extracellular matrix (ECM), supporting cell growth and differentiation with consistent results. The versatility of GrowDex has seen it used in numerous applications ranging from 2D/3D cell culture and organ-on-a-chip models, through drug release studies and 3D printing.
Being a completely xeno-free hydrogel, GrowDex enables you to have a complete control over the culture environment for your cells. Recovering your cells, spheroids or organoids post culture is one step process with our GrowDase™ enzyme. The enzyme digests the GrowDex® leaving your cells in solution for re-plating or downstream processing.