CellCoTec- A Breaktrough in Knee Cartilage Repair

CellCoTec - A Breakthrough in Knee Cartilage Repair

CellCoTec, the regenerative medicine company specialising in autologous knee cartilage repair, is pleased to announce the successful completion of the implantation phase of its pilot clinical trial. Ten patients have been treated using CellCoTec’s INSTRUCT procedure at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham, UK, University Hospital in Ghent, Belgium and the Centre for Sports Medicine in Warsaw, Poland.
This pilot clinical trial was designed to demonstrate safety and appropriate defect filling, and the company is extremely encouraged by the initial clinical data. Use of biopsies and enhanced MRI techniques has demonstrated structural repair of the defect site, a very positive indicator to the future long term efficacy of INSTRUCT in re-generating hyaline cartilage in the knee

As a result of the very positive early clinical results, the company has now commenced a follow on thirty patient clinical trial, using the existing surgical centres, together with three new centres in Poland. It is the company’s intention to make a CE mark submission for INSTRUCT, based on the pilot clinical trial data.

Concurrent with the early clinical trial success, CellCoTec has also recently completed a further round of fund raising. In September 2011, CellCoTec raised £1.8 million through an equity financing, largely from its current shareholders.

Ian Paling, CEO, commented “We are extremely pleased to have completed, successfully, the implantation phase of the pilot clinical trial. The clinical results, at this early stage, give us considerable cause for optimism, and the necessary confidence to commence the follow on clinical trial. In our view, cartilage repair is an area of orthopaedic surgery that is currently not well satisfied, and we anticipate that our INSTRUCT treatment could well prove to be a significant breakthrough.

We are also very encouraged by our ability to complete a further financing round, thus giving the company a substantial cash runway to move into the second phase of the clinical trial."

Source: CellCoTec