Inventorspot.com brings us word of a new technique, currently in devlopment, that could fix broken bones in minutes, rather than the weeks now required for most fractures.

UK medical research firm RegenTec has come up with a new two-part ceramic-based substance they call Injectable Bone which can be injected into bone breaks filling any voids and bonding with the natural bone to weld the fracture shut. The compound reportedly liquifies and blends into a sort of bio-glue in the presence of body heat.

“You won’t be able to just walk out of a hospital with a broken leg,” Robin Quirk, a professor at the University of Nottingham and co-developer of the technology told Inventorspot. “What we are trying to do in the short term is have something that fills the void left by a break that acts like normal spongy bone and encourages natural regeneration.”

Ideally, Quirk says, Injectable Bone could replace metal pins currently used to stabilize fractures, which stay in the body permanently.

Injectable Bone eventually degrades in the body as the bones knit and is harmlessly expelled. Quirk notes that the compound can be tailored to individual patients depending on how quickly they heal and could actively promote bone growth if additional medications or substances are added to the ceramic mix.

Injectable Bone may be available to surgeons within a couple of years, pending regulatory approval in their jurisdictions.