How it began
As a child Fertram Sigurjonsson worked at a cod de-skinning machine in a fish factory in Isafjordur, a fishing town in northwest Iceland. He later worked for a prosthetics company, where he was asked to help heal wounds caused by friction between artificial and residual limbs. Testing skin replacements, he noticed that human skin felt similar in texture and strength to the cod skin he had handled. He won a research grant to compare the two, then left his job to set up a small laboratory in Isafjordur and found Kerecis. The technology was first patented in Iceland and the United States in the early 2010s.
Before it existed
Most skin substitute products were based on tissue of human or pig origin. Because of the risk of passing on viruses, such tissue receives a harsh anti-viral treatment, which removes most of the natural components of the material and leaves it less like human skin. For people with diabetic foot ulcers and other chronic wounds, few treatments reliably sped up closure, and amputation was often the outcome.
How it works
Fresh cod skins, a by-product of food processing, are collected from fishing companies in Isafjordur. No viral transfer risk is known between North Atlantic cod and humans, so the skin needs only gentle processing: the cells and antigenic material are removed while the structure and the omega-3 fats stay intact. The graft is laid on the wound, the patient's own cells migrate into its pores, blood vessels form, and the fish skin is converted into living tissue. The maker says the body incorporates the graft in about five to seven days.
Who pushed back
The World Intellectual Property Organization records that when doctors first heard that fish skin could heal human wounds, many dismissed it as improbable science, and the medical community was hesitant. The company responded by investing in clinical trials, including randomized trials on diabetic foot ulcers and comparisons with human amnion membrane, and by filing patent applications before it had a product on the market.
What changed first
On November 7, 2013, Kerecis announced that the US Food and Drug Administration had granted 510(k) clearance to market its fish skin sheets for chronic wounds in the United States. European regulators also cleared intact fish skin for wound management. Patents were extended through the Patent Cooperation Treaty to Europe, Canada, China, Japan and other markets.
Where it stands today
All of the fish skin products are still made in Isafjordur. The company reports more than 600 employees worldwide, including a sales force of 260 in the United States, and says thousands of patients are treated each year. In 2023 the Danish medical company Coloplast acquired Kerecis for more than 1 billion US dollars.
