(Photo by Duncan Graham)

A little pellet developed in Yogyakarta may be able to enhance dental surgery, slash costs and earn Indonesia export income.

It'€™s the size of a cigarette packet, though there are no glossy images or death and cancer warnings. Instead the opposite '€” a cheering message welcoming the buyer '€œto the next generation of regenerative therapy'€.

In lay terms this means helping the body to repair itself.

The pack'€™s contents are tiny: just a small plastic vial containing a white pellet. It looks insignificant enough, but this is an Indonesian invention that has taken 10 years to develop.

It may be able to enhance dental surgery, slash costs and earn export income.

More importantly, it could help improve the lives of thousands of people with damaged jaws from accidents or cancer and those seeking cosmetic surgery.

Welcome to bioceramics, the use of synthesized natural products to help heal human hurts.

In a Yogyakarta suburb, a small blue-walled factory is being prepared to make the pellets, starting mid-year when essential laboratory equipment arrives. Up to 10 workers will be trained to producing around 100,000 units a year for a start.

If reality matches the hype, the pellets, and other products made using the same technology, could nudge Indonesia closer to joining the world'€™s leading pharmaceutical suppliers, the US, China and India.

It'€™s called Gama-CHA. It'€™s a material that helps fractured bones graft. At present the application is mainly in dental work, though later it could be used to repair other bones, particularly the spinal column. It can be used by dentists, though most interest is likely to come from oral surgeons.

It'€™s made from carbonate apatite '€” a calcium-phosphate mineral '€” and it'€™s being developed by PT Swayasa Prakarsa.

This commercial business is owned by Gadjah Mada University (UGM) through a subsidiary of its holding company PT Gama Multi.

(Photo by Duncan Graham)
This runs several services including finance, a consultancy and the university club. Gama is an acronym for Gadjah Mada; CHA stands for carbonated hydroxyapatite.

Swayasa Prakarsa has been set up using a Rp 67 billion (US$5.9 million) loan from UGM, whose engineering and nano-biomedicine research group has been creating the technology.

According to Gama-CHA inventor Ika Dewi Ana, an associate professor at UGM, the product uses materials that are widely available and cheap.

'€œIt'€™s identical to human bone in terms of physical and chemical properties,'€ she said. '€œIt mimics human bones but does away with the need to graft bone from another part of the body. That'€™s the gold standard, but it'€™s intrusive and risky.

'€œGama-CHA acts as a scaffold. It supports and allows bone regeneration to occur naturally. It creates an environment where bone tissue can grow.

'€œIt'€™s a major improvement on other products which have to be bought overseas. We'€™ve already taken out Indonesian patents, and we'€™ve signed a contract for Kimia Farma [the Indonesian pharmaceutical manufacturer and retailer] to distribute Gama-CHA.

'€œThis means it will be in pharmacists across the nation for use by dentists and surgeons. We want to make it available first to Indonesians before we start to export.'€

Like slim dieticians and clear-skinned dermatologists, Ika comes across as a splendid advertisement for her profession, sporting a spectacular set of teeth. She'€™d set her heart on a career in medicine, so when she was offered a place in UGM'€™s dentistry faculty rather than her chosen course, she cried in frustration.

'€œNow I also teach in the medical faculty, which shows there can be something good in every setback,'€ she said.

Since graduating, she has studied in The Netherlands and Japan and built research contacts used to develop Gama-CHA.

However all royalties will stay here because the synthesis method and formula are Indonesian.

In 2011, Ika was recognized as UGM'€™s most innovative researcher. She exhibits the effervescent energy required of an entrepreneur '€” something rare to find in academics. It'€™s likely to be hard tested in the months ahead as the invention challenges its rivals, and commercial interests start to bite. She expects the price of the Indonesian product to be around a third of similar imported products that cost up to US$70. Although the little pellets will be the main seller, the company has also developed a sponge using the same ingredients to soak up blood and mucous during dentistry.

The sponges that sit in the mouth and surround the wound as the tooth is drilled or pulled currently come from Germany.

The pellets can also be used as plugs after an extraction to keep the hole clean and open for later procedures.

Until now other commercial products have been made using high temperatures which affect the crystals in the composition. It'€™s claimed that Gama-CHA will be better because it'€™s created using low temperatures more akin to the human body

Bone fractures can repair themselves, though they need a structure or scaffold to knit the parts together and ensure no kinks. Surgeons in some countries use bone from a bone bank stocked by donated cadavers.

Ika said there were no legal prohibitions on using donated bone in either Indonesian or Islamic law, but such procedures were rare because the materials have been in short supply.

'€œHowever, the use of bone raises the risk of infection,'€ she said. '€œThis is not a concern with Gama-CHA, which is radiated during manufacture and totally sterile. It'€™s safe because it degrades naturally and is absorbed by the body. It can be stored at room temperature.

'€œThe Health Ministry has been evaluating the product, but has found problems with classification because it'€™s neither a drug nor a device. So we'€™re helping them define and write the regulations for what'€™s called bone graft.

'€œI do not want my country to be a technology user only. We have to be technology producers.'€