Yes, this is real. No, please do not try it at home.

Before we go any further, one important announcement:

Do not put fish skin on a wound at home.

Not cod skin.
Not salmon skin.
And definitely not that suspicious piece of halibut that has been living at the back of your freezer since Christmas.

This story is about sterile, medical-grade Icelandic cod skin, professionally processed for use in wound care and applied by trained healthcare professionals.

Good.

Now that nobody is heading towards the fish counter with surgical ambitions, we can continue.

Because this may be one of Iceland’s strangest — and smartest — innovation stories.

Wait. Icelandic cod skin… for human wounds?

Yes.

In Iceland, skin from North Atlantic cod is being transformed into advanced medical material designed to support tissue regeneration and wound healing.

One of the pioneers is Icelandic medical technology company Kerecis, founded in the Westfjords town of Ísafjörður.

The company produces medical fish-skin grafts from wild Atlantic cod. According to Kerecis, the fish come from sustainable Icelandic stocks, and the skin — once a low-value by-product of food production — is processed into medical devices using renewable energy.

So yes.

The cod that helped feed Iceland for centuries has apparently decided that retirement is not for it.

It has gone into medicine.

How does cod skin wound healing actually work?

Here comes the science.

Do not leave.

We promise to keep acellular matrix to a minimum.

When cod skin is prepared for medical use, cells and unwanted biological material are removed while much of the skin’s natural three-dimensional structure is retained.

The result can act as a kind of scaffold for the wound.

Imagine renovating a damaged building. Before the rebuilding can really begin, workers need a structure to work around.

Something similar can happen with tissue regeneration. The processed fish skin provides a structure into which the patient’s own cells can grow, helping support the body’s natural healing process.

That is the simple version.

The complicated version involves extracellular matrices, collagen, cellular ingrowth and enough biomedical vocabulary to make most people suddenly remember that the dishwasher needs emptying.

Is fish skin wound treatment actually approved?

This is not experimental seafood being applied behind a hospital because somebody had an interesting idea after lunch.

Fish-skin wound products have gone through medical-device regulatory processes.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted 510(k) clearance to several Kerecis devices. A 2024 FDA filing for Kerecis Parvus, for example, describes it as a terminally sterilized, acellular medical device made from North Atlantic cod skin for wound management and single use. See the FDA 510(k) summary

Notice the word cleared rather than “approved.”

Medical terminology matters.

Especially when fish are involved.

What kinds of wounds are fish skin grafts used for?

Medical fish skin grafts are intended for wounds requiring professional care — not the tiny cut you got while slicing your morning bread.

So please stop looking meaningfully at the cod.

Kerecis products are used clinically for conditions including chronic wounds, diabetic wounds, vascular ulcers, trauma wounds, surgical wounds and burns.

And there is a growing body of scientific research behind fish skin grafts.

A 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis covering eight studies found that adding fish skin graft treatment to standard care for chronic ulcers was associated with a significantly higher complete-healing rate than standard care alone. However, the analysis did not find a significant difference in time to healing, and the evidence base is still developing. Read the study on PubMed

In other words:

Promising? Yes.

Magic? No.

Interesting enough to make us write an entire article about cod skin?

Absolutely.

Why cod?

At first glance, cod skin may not seem like the obvious material for advanced medical technology.

Mostly because it is cod skin.

But its structure is surprisingly useful.

Fish skin contains collagen and has a natural structure and porosity that can support cellular growth when processed appropriately. Because fish pathogens are very different from human pathogens, cod skin can also be processed relatively gently compared with some mammalian materials, helping preserve more of its original structure.

Kerecis uses wild North Atlantic cod from Iceland rather than farming fish specifically for medical production. The company says the skin comes from fish already harvested for food.

Which gives us one of those phrases sustainability departments absolutely love:

Turning a by-product into a high-value resource.

Except this time it actually means something.

From Icelandic fishing village to medical technology

This is where the story becomes particularly Icelandic.

Cod has shaped Iceland for centuries.

It has been food, trade, exports, employment and occasionally the reason Iceland became involved in rather heated arguments with Britain about who was allowed to fish where.

Iceland did not merely eat cod.

Iceland built an economy around it.

Then somebody eventually looked at the skin and thought:

“Could we do something useful with this too?”

Apparently the answer was:

“Yes. Human tissue regeneration.”

Reasonable escalation.

The idea behind Kerecis began in Ísafjörður in Iceland’s Westfjords — a town deeply connected to fishing. Today, medical products manufactured there are used far beyond Iceland.

If you already associate Iceland with volcanoes, glaciers and geothermal landscapes, this is a useful reminder that the country is also surprisingly good at turning natural resources into clever technology.

This may be the most Nordic innovation story ever

There is something wonderfully Nordic about taking an ordinary local resource and asking whether it could do something completely different.

Denmark looks at wind and builds an energy industry.

Finland looks at granite bedrock and starts constructing half a city underneath Helsinki.

Sweden looks at furniture and decides the customer should finish building it.

Iceland looks at fish skin and thinks:

Healthcare.

Why not?

We have written before about how Nordic engineering often grows from practical problem-solving. Cold climates, difficult geography, small populations and limited resources have a remarkable ability to encourage the question:

“How can we make this work better?”

The Icelandic cod skin story fits perfectly.

It combines fishing, biotechnology, healthcare, sustainability and manufacturing.

And absolutely nobody needed to invent another app.

Not a Viking folk remedy

We should clear up one other thing.

This is not an ancient Icelandic healing tradition.

There was no Viking standing beside a fjord wrapping wounds in cod while shouting:

“Trust me, Björn. The omega-3 will save you.”

This is modern medical technology developed through research, controlled manufacturing, clinical use and regulatory oversight.

Which arguably makes the story even more interesting.

The best Nordic innovation stories often begin with something old and familiar — fishing, forestry, wind, water, minerals — and ask how it might solve a thoroughly modern problem.

Cod has been part of Icelandic life for generations.

Cod skin wound healing is a very new chapter.

Why this belongs in a travel story

Because travelling through the Nordics should not only be about photographing waterfalls.

Although we strongly recommend photographing the waterfalls.

Places become more interesting when you understand how they think.

Iceland is spectacular because of volcanoes, glaciers, waterfalls and black-sand beaches.

But Iceland is also fascinating because it is a small, remote country that repeatedly finds clever ways of working with what it has.

That makes stories like Kerecis especially interesting for corporate groups, study visits, technical delegations and incentive travelers looking beyond ordinary sightseeing.

A Nordic program can combine landscapes and gastronomy with innovation, sustainability, architecture, energy, healthcare and real-world business cases.

Our technical visits and educational programs across the Nordics are built around exactly that idea: understanding what makes the region work, rather than simply looking at it through a coach window.

And for groups who prefer their learning mixed with excellent hotels, dramatic scenery and possibly a geothermal lagoon, there is always Nordic incentive travel.

We are flexible.

The cod’s second career

There is something rather wonderful about the whole story.

A fish that has helped feed Iceland for centuries now has another use.

The sea provides the cod.

The cod provides food.

The food industry provides a by-product.

And Icelandic researchers and entrepreneurs found a way to turn that by-product into medical technology designed to support human tissue regeneration.

It is practical.

It is sustainable.

It is scientifically fascinating.

And it is just weird enough to make you remember it.

Which is probably why we love it.

The Nordics: where even the fish refuse to be average.

Planning something less ordinary in Iceland?

At Best of Nordic, we create tailor-made journeys, incentive programs, corporate events and professional study visits throughout the Nordic region.

So whether your guests want volcanoes, gastronomy, sustainability, innovation, geothermal energy — or a story about the Icelandic cod that unexpectedly went into medicine — we can help build the program around it.

Explore Iceland with Best of Nordic or contact us at info@bestof.dk.

We know the hotels.

We know the landscapes.

We know the local suppliers.

And apparently, we now know rather more about cod skin than we ever expected.