A team of University of Malta researchers has been awarded a European patent for an innovative hip replacement implant that could offer better durability than conventional devices.

This brings the pioneering device one step closer to being brought to market, with hopes it might mean patients having to change the implant less often.

The award-winning MaltaHip was designed and built in Malta and has already attracted funding both at home and abroad, including a UK grant worth half a million pounds.

Describing successfully applying for a European patent for a biomedical device as a “Herculean task”, engineer and University of Malta professor Joseph Buhagiar said the team was “elated” at the news.

“This is not like getting a paper published; getting a patent is very rare,” he said. “It was a long journey and a very uncommon one but all of the sacrifices and hard work were worth it.”

The university has only been granted around 15 patents in its history, with biomedical devices accounting for an even smaller number, Buhagiar added.

The researchers were inspired by the ankle joint, which is typically less prone to arthritis than knee and hip joints, despite carrying more weight.

'Tested to five million steps'

The team mimicked principles of the ankle to create a new, segmented design that shows signs of performing better under repeated use.

“After being tested to five million steps, the recorded wear was negligible,” he said. The invention has undergone significant testing in simulated conditions before being sent to Germany for physical tests costing a hefty €40,000.

Researchers were inspired by the ankle joint when creating the MaltaHip. Photo: University of Malta

As hip implants wear over time, they can release particles into the body which can lead to bone erosion, pain and, over time, implant failure, Buhagiar explained.

He has worked on the MaltaHip since the project started over five years ago, after teaming up with the device’s main inventor, anatomy lecturer Pierre Schembri Wismayer.

Though not an engineer by profession, Schembri Wismayer’s expertise and ability to “think outside the box” was instrumental in the hip device’s design, said Buhagiar.

Schembri Wismayer called it “reaffirming” to have been granted the patent, which, he said, “justifies the investment which the University of Malta, British and Dutch interests have put into it”. The team of researchers first filed for a patent for the MaltaHip in the UK in 2019, though the European patent is the first to be approved. They have subsequently filed for intellectual property protection in the USA and India.

Earlier this year, the team’s UK company, Garland Surgical Limited announced that the project had secured funding of £500,000 from the Innovate UK Smart Award while, in Malta, the MaltaHip has benefitted from funding from the Malta Council for Science and Technology.

In November 2019, the team members received the Industrial Excellence Award at that year’s Malta Engineering Excellence Awards and, the following month, they were also the recipients of a World Intellectual Property Organisation Medal for Inventors.

Schembri Wismayer, together with Buhagiar, engineer Pierluigi Mollicone and engineer Donald Dalli, from the Faculty of Engineering, are behind the MaltaHip invention.

In the UK, the device is being developed as part of an industrial and academic partnership between Garland Surgical Ltd and the University of Leeds.