Every successful innovation has a story.
Ours began more than 30 years ago, when a Purdue University biomedical engineering team discovered the regenerative properties of porcine small intestinal submucosa (SIS) and other extracellular matrix materials.

In 1995, based on research supporting the versatility and effectiveness of SIS, Cook Group Inc. licensed the technology from the Purdue Research Foundation and established Cook Biotech Inc. to develop and commercialize the new biomaterials. This collaboration bridged the two worlds of a well-established, innovative medical company and a prestigious research university.

Since then, Cook Biotech has developed and manufactured products for clinical applications ranging from dura repair to diabetic foot ulcers, from dental repair to hernia repair.?To date, we have shipped more than 6 million products through our global network of partners and distributors.?

Entrepreneur Bill Cook—who founded Cook Medical in Bloomington, Indiana, in 1963—established Cook Biotech in the Purdue Research Park in West Lafayette, Indiana. From the beginning, Mr. Cook instilled in the new company a core value that holds true throughout all Cook medical companies worldwide today:

Patients come first.

Cook hired recent Purdue University graduates Dr. Michael Hiles and Dr. Umesh Patel as the startup’s first two employees.

As graduate students in the Purdue Hillenbrand Biomedical Engineering Center, Hiles and Patel had played instrumental roles in the discovery of and subsequent research into SIS, including many aspects of processing and designing prototype devices.

Along with a growing team, Hiles and Patel focused on establishing medical-grade SIS while maintaining the material’s natural structure, strength, and regenerative properties. In 1998, the FDA cleared the first SIS clinical applications—wound treatments, and in 1999, hernia repair and soft-tissue reinforcement.

Today, Cook Biotech President Umesh Patel and Senior VP of R&D and Chief Scientific Officer Michael Hiles continue to lead Cook Biotech’s mission to serve patients.

Cook Biotech’s global team of more than 200 people includes many other key employees who—like Hiles and Patel—have been with the company since its inception or shortly thereafter. Combined, they represent an impressive cumulative amount of expertise not only in SIS, but in other promising advanced biomaterials for restoring tissue and improving life.

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