The advancement of collagen membrane technology.
Yes, the surface is crosslinked, though no detectable amount of cross-linking chemicals can be traced in Neomem® FlexPlus. There has been some controversy regarding the cross-linking of membranes using chemicals. Some claim that chemical cross-linking causes excessive inflammation due to leaching of the chemical into the tissues. This may have been true decades ago when resorbable collagen membranes were first introduced. Current collagen membrane technology uses chemical cross-linking to tailor the resorption of the collagen for specific time periods ranging from weeks to as much as one year.
In fact, there is a study available¹ that shows there is less inflammation when using Neomem® Flexplus.
¹ Li ST, Yuen D, Martin D, Shishido Lee N. 2015. A Comparative Study of a New Porcine Collagen Membrane to Bio-Gide®. Science, Technology, Innovation. Data on file.
In chemistry and biology a cross-link is a bond that links one polymer chain to another. These links may take the form of covalent bonds or ionic bonds and the polymers can be either synthetic polymers or natural polymers (such as proteins).