Having raised $700,000 in equity financing, Dartmouth Medical Research is poised to commercialize a “bone glue” apparatus that it hopes to test on cranial procedures in about two years.

The Halifax-based company has licensed two patents from the University of Massachusetts that apply to a sort of glue gun that hot-melts two pieces of bone together, replacing the need for plates and screws. DMR also has three patents on its own.

Interim CEO Steve Arless, a former Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in the life sciences segment,  presented the company at the BioInnovation Challegnge at BIoPort Atlantic last week. He said DMR wants to introduce its product for joining bones in non-weight-bearing situations, and has opted therefore to target cranial surgeries first.

Cranial surgery generally calls for a system of plates and screws to rejoin bones, expensive pieces of metal that later must be removed. The DMR procedure allows the bones to be melted together, so the bones heal on their own, melding naturally with human tissue and with no need to remove anything.

The other advantage of the cranial space is the size of the market, as there are more than 1 million brain surgeries each year.

“This technology will meet an unmet need in cranial surgery and is already generating regional interest in Halifax,” said Arless.

The company has raised $700,000 in angel financing, which has been used to build a prototype.

Arless said the regulatory hurdles are not too troublesome because there are two precedents with the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S., meaning some key parts of the technology have already been approved by the agency.

Dartmouth Medical Research is one of two Nova Scotian medtech companies presenting at the prestigious AdvaMed conference in Boston this week.

The Canadian consulate in Boston convinced AdvaMed organizers to set aside 10 spots in the company presentation segment for companies from Canada, which resulted in DMR and Mindful Scientific, whose product analyses brain trauma, making the trip to Boston.

Arless said the company has “pulled together a world-class advisory board” and one of the backers of the project is James Drage, the CEO of Atlantic Venture Capital and the head of another BioInnovation contestant, Coccicorp.