Ellis Developments Limited

Nottingham, United Kingdom

Ellis Developments provides innovative solutions for engineering and surgical problems using textiles. We also provide an expert witness service in most textile disciplines as well as independent consultancy.

Ellis Developments is a textile technology company specialising in surgical implants and reinforcement for plastics (composite materials). Our areas of interest are particularly fibre placement technology and research and development into engineering textiles and textile surgical implants. The placement may be by embroidery, weaving, knitting, braiding or other methods most appropriate to the particular application. We also apply our specialist skills for other research and development work as well as for independent litigation support as expert witness in a very wide range of conventional textile disciplines.

The company has a patent portfolio of more than 20 patents granted or in various application stages. The most important of these, for a novel method of placing fibres to manufacture surgical implants has been licensed. Others are available for licensing.

The company has worked with a number of multinational companies, including Ford Motor Company, Toyota, QinetiQ at Farnborough, GKN and Airbus.  

Much of the company’s work is carried out through collaborative research projects with government or private support. Ellis Developments managed the £700,000 Mascet project to develop embroidery techniques for the development of structural composites for automotive and aerospace applications. We also managed the £325,000 SITE project to develop embroidery technology for the manufacture of surgical implants, which has lead to several important advances in surgery. One of the developments, to repair abdominal aortic aneurysms using keyhole surgery, is marketed by Lombard Medical, and others by Nuvasive Inc.

 The company has won two SMART awards, and participated in a number of other research projects. These include an EPSRC funded project to develop biodegradable composite materials for use in maxillo-facial surgery in conjunction with the University of Nottingham (where Julian Ellis is a Special Lecturer). It was a partner in recently completed £2.4 million NuTaP Foresight Link project to address problems related to urinary incontinence – a problem which affects some 3 million people in the UK alone. We recently completed another major clooaborative project, "NOTS", to re-examine node and truss structures (such as used in the Wellington Bomber designed by Barnes Wallace) for aircraft manufacture, but using modern materials and methods. This project was a collaboration between Airbus and several companies and universities: it was financially supported by the DTI. We are partners in a project "Spider-Like Silk" to develop a new biodegradable fibre  for use as an implant material. This is in conjunction with University of Oxford, Pearsalls Ltd and Oxford Biomaterials Ltd.

We have expertise in the through-stitching of structural components using CADCAM techniques for the improvement of impact resistance of aerospace components, (particularly to bird-strike) and sports and racing cars. We are even able to through-stitch pre-preg. Some of our innovative work was described in a BBC Radio 4 Programme "Connect" on the subject of stitching.

This web site describes these activities, together with information about our expert witness service and other advice and assistance to textile companies.

You can also read about our involvement in the world's first replacement of a collar bone, a claviculoplasty.

Our Chairman, Julian Ellis, was awarded an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2004

Ellis Developments are winners of two SMART Awards.

Julian Ellis is registered with the Law Society as an Expert Witness

We are one of the UK's leading companies in innovative technical textiles

Read about this device and why it has been so widely publicised

Julian Ellis will be delighted to hear from you. Telephone on +44 (0) 1636  812100

email: info@ellisdev.co.uk We are based at The Stables, Hall Farm, Kirklington, Newark, Nottinghamshire, NG22 8NN,, United Kingdom