#1110 2007 · Kerecis (Fertram Sigurjónsson) · Medical devices
Kerecis grafts cod skin onto human wounds because fish can't give people their diseases
the problem
Chronic wounds needed skin grafts, but mammal-derived materials carried real risk of disease transmission.
background
Skin substitutes made from pig or cow tissue had long been used to treat burns, diabetic ulcers and other wounds that wouldn't heal on their own, but because pigs and cows are close enough to humans biologically for viruses and prions to cross over, every batch of mammalian graft material had to go through harsh viral-inactivation processing — detergents and treatments that strip lipids and denature the tissue's natural structure to make it safe, at the cost of much of what made it useful for healing in the first place. Fertram Sigurjónsson, an Icelandic entrepreneur who had grown up in the fishing village of Ísafjörður working a cod-deskinning machine, spent his later career in medical-device development.
Iceland's fishing industry, meanwhile, threw away the great majority of every cod's skin as a low-value byproduct of filleting, alongside heads, bones and offal sold cheaply for fishmeal. Sigurjónsson's problem was not finding a source of skin — Iceland's fleet produced far more than any grafting business could use — it was finding a source of skin that didn't carry the disease risk mammalian material did, while still resembling human dermis closely enough to work.
what everyone would do
The available options were the ones every wound-care company already used: porcine or bovine skin, or human cadaver and amniotic tissue, all requiring expensive viral-inactivation and sterilization steps that strip away much of the natural material that makes a graft heal well in the first place.
what they saw
Sigurjónsson saw the danger in mammal grafts was not the tissue, it was closeness — pig and cow biology is near enough to humans for disease to jump species. Fish are far enough away that the risk vanishes.
the move
Sigurjónsson founded Kerecis in 2007 to develop wound-care products from the decellularized skin of wild North Atlantic cod, whose collagen structure closely resembles human dermis and whose cold-blooded biology means no known virus or prion can cross from fish to humans — letting the skin be only gently processed rather than aggressively sterilized, so it keeps its natural omega-3 fatty acids and structure intact.
why it works
Because no known fish virus or prion can infect human cells, Kerecis skins need only mild processing to remove cells while leaving the natural collagen scaffold and fatty acids intact — competitors using pig or cow tissue must chemically strip their material to make it safe, degrading the structure that helps a wound heal, so the fish-derived product outperforms on biology before its cost advantage as a discarded byproduct is even counted.
the payoff
FDA-cleared and used across US and European hospitals for burns and wounds, Kerecis was acquired by Coloplast in 2023 for over $1.3 billion.
where it breaks
It only works where the alternate source is biologically distant enough to remove the risk, not just cheaper — a closer relative's tissue would reintroduce the exact danger being avoided. It also depends on the substitute material actually resembling the target tissue closely enough to function, which is a matter of luck as much as design; most waste streams don't have a structure this well matched to a medical need.
what came after
Kerecis built an entirely new medical-device category — intact fish-skin grafts — out of a seafood byproduct, and its Ísafjörður plant now processes cod skins that would otherwise go to fishmeal into one of Iceland's most valuable non-fishing exports.
references
- [1]Kerecis Fish Skin Graft Technology Revolutionizes Tissue RegenerationWorld Intellectual Property Organization, 2023wipo.int
- [2]History, Founder and Co-Founding TeamKerecis, 2023kerecis.com