Orthocell

Three years ago, a young Ukrainian surgeon reached out to Australian orthopaedic surgeon, Dr Alex O’Beirne, for help learning a new nerve repair technique. They'd never met. The training happened over video call, across hemispheres, in the middle of a war.

Earlier this month, they finally met in Perth.

Dr Zakhar Plakhtyr heads the reconstructive surgery department at a military hospital in Ukraine's western region. He has treated thousands of soldiers with blast injuries, amputations, and peripheral nerve damage — injuries that have become increasingly complex as drone warfare has changed the nature of frontline trauma. At 30, he has seen more complex reconstructive cases than most surgeons encounter in a lifetime.

This week, The Australian told his story. In his own words:

“Combat injury is quite different to civilian injury because it’s high-energy explosive injuries that cause big soft tissues and bone defects and nerve defects. It’s not like cutting with a knife or a car crash or something like – it’s big defects, big inflammation, a lot of infection, and the repair you do needs to be very good because you don’t want to come back in a few years to do another operation on the nerves,” Dr Plakhtyr told The Australian.

Dr Plakhtyr has now used Remplir in more than 20 battlefield surgeries, reporting meaningfully better outcomes for his patients.

Orthocell first delivered an initial humanitarian shipment of Remplir to Ukraine in April 2025. The shipment was coordinated through Professor Fiona Wood AO and UK defence surgeons supporting battlefield trauma programs.

More Remplir devices are now in transit to Ukraine after a group of Australian corporate donors - including Wyllie Group, Andrew Forrest’s Minderoo Foundation, Canaccord Genuity Australia, Gilbert + Tobin, Device Technologies Australia, Bell Potter, and Argonaut Securities - agreed to purchase 100 devices at humanitarian pricing to ship to Ukraine. Orthocell has also donated a further 100 devices and the Ukraine Crisis Appeal has pledged AU$10K to support this.

🔗 Read the full story via The Australian: https://bit.ly/OCC_TheAustralian_Ukraine

The Ukraine Crisis Appeal is now welcoming donations to bring more Remplir™ devices and other urgent medical supplies to victims of war. To donate visit ukrainecrisisappeal.org and scroll to the “Nerve Repair for Ukraine” campaign.