State Leaders tour the UW Biotech Spin Off

On Friday, Dec. 17, state authorities and university leaders toured Stratatech Corp. in University Research Park in Madison, demonstrating Madison inventiveness. Stratatech is a great illustration of the cutting-edge thinking coming out of UW–Madison and other Wisconsin colleges. Wisconsin’s technology and biotechnology industries are continuing to expand at a rapid pace, increasing the state’s economy and employment.

Former UW–Madison researcher and pathology professor Lynn Allen-Hoffmann developed Stratatech, which is an example of the university’s involvement in scientific breakthroughs. Allen-Hoffmann created Stratatech in 2000 to use a unique skin cell line developed in her laboratory to develop a cell-based therapy to help heal burn sufferers. Her inspiration for the new product came from seeing a UW–Madison burn surgeon operate on a farmer with third-degree burns and realising the need for alternatives to the present treatments.

The work being done at Stratatech serves as a reminder of the incredible importance of UW–life-changing Madison’s research. The discoveries made in Wisconsin’s classrooms, laboratories, and research stations are saving lives in the state and around the world. Stratatech went on to develop StrataGraft, a bioengineered, live, human cell-based construct that got FDA approval for use by health care professionals in June 2021.

It is now owned by multinational biopharmaceutical giant Mallinckrodt. StrataGraft manufacturing has begun at the Stratatech site in Madison. The University of Wisconsin–Madison has played such an important role in StrataGraft’s history, and we’re proud of the innovative spirit that has propelled this technology from the university lab to burn centres around the country.