LONDON, Sept. 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- UK startup Eterna Regeneratives has closed a seed investment round led by Hoxton Ventures and The Venture Collective (TVC) to build its regenerative biomaterial platform spanning enamel repair and bone regeneration, starting with the $43bn global oral care market. Co-founded by Khaled Eissa and Dr Sherif Elsharkawy in 2024, the King's College London spin-out attracted international attention last year when studies found the team's revolutionary patented material could successfully regrow damaged tooth enamel using keratin - a protein found in human hair, skin and wool. The research developed by Dr Elsharkawy and Dr Sara Gamea, his PhD student, was picked up widely by national and international media, including from the BBC, Washington Post and Newsweek, putting keratin-based regeneration on the map well before a commercial product existed.

Now working to develop a pipeline of material technologies, Eterna aims to tackle a problem that affects nearly everyone: the slow, irreversible loss of tooth enamel. The team at Eterna Regeneratives believes that symptom management cannot be the only solution. "The only way to truly heal the human body is to help it heal itself," said Khaled Eissa, co-founder and CEO. "We wanted to create a product that is readily available, scalable and has the potential to deliver long-term results." "This investment lets us move from lab-based proof of concept to real-world products at pace," said Dr Sherif Elsharkawy, Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder. "It is a validation of years of research, and a step change in how quickly we can bring this technology to patients."

Unlike many other tissues in the human body, tooth enamel cannot naturally regenerate once it has been lost. This can lead to hypersensitivity, cavities, tooth pain and the gradual deterioration of teeth. Fluoride, the best option currently available on the market, only superficially addresses the problem - offering minor strengthening of existing enamel but failing to rebuild what has already been lost. Resin, the go-to for professional repair, merely fills a tooth rather than rebuilding it, and has a finite lifespan, often resulting in necessary replacements and high costs for patients. It is against this backdrop that Eterna has created a keratin-based material that can be added to toothpaste, enabling cost-effective and lasting enamel regeneration.

Eterna's patented keratin-based product has delivered striking results. In vitro experiments carried out on extracted tooth samples revealed a new, enamel-like layer forming directly on the tooth surface, as the material stimulates a mineralisation process. Treated samples showed hardness and mechanical strength restored to levels close to that of native, healthy enamel. Moreover, the technology has shown the capacity to reduce abrasion and even treat decay. This provides a first glimpse into what it might look like to help a tooth heal itself, instead of simply patching over damage. It is also significantly cheaper than alternatives, delivering meaningful treatment at a fraction of the cost.

Hussein Kanji, Partner at Hoxton Ventures

"Eterna is the kind of company we like to back early: powerful, defensible science with a capital-efficient route to market. Its technology has the potential to transform oral care from managing enamel loss to actually repairing it, while opening the door to broader applications in tissue and bone regeneration. Khaled and Sherif are the right scientific team to bring this from the lab and to global scale."

Gina Kirch, Founding Partner at The Venture Collective:

"Eterna is looking beyond basic healing to achieve complete tissue restoration. For too long, patients have had to settle for treatments that manage damage rather than repair it. Eterna is revolutionizing this standard of care, harnessing its patented keratin technology to help the body regenerate itself more fully than existing options allow."

Eterna's second application will build on the same patented knowledge, this time targeting bone regeneration. Today, when someone breaks a bone, soft tissue grows back into the site without resolving the underlying fragility. Medical solutions typically involve inserting a collagen membrane and hoping the bone regrows. But preliminary tests suggest Eterna's keratin-based technology could be harnessed to regenerate strong, healthy bone.

Oral health is Eterna's first commercial beachhead, with further IP in the pipeline beyond bone regeneration. The company is expanding its research and commercial teams and building relationships with oral-care companies, professional partners and consumer-health groups, with a clear focus on delivering its first commercial product in the near term. By embedding its material into products already on the market, Eterna aims to bring its sophisticated but accessible science directly to consumers.

About Eterna

Eterna Regeneratives is a UK biotechnology spin-out from King's College London, founded in 2024 by Khaled Eissa and Sherif Elsharkawy. Backed by Hoxton Ventures and The Venture Collective, Eterna is building a biomaterials platform for mineralisation and tissue regeneration, with initial applications in enamel repair and bone. Their patented platform uses keratin, derived from sheep's wool, to guide new mineral growth at the site of damage, working with the body's own chemistry beyond just protection. The company has now grown into a new lab space in Canary Wharf, where they are focused on commercialising their product, building their IP pipeline, and partnering with healthcare companies to bring their product to the mass market.

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