done Hotdog. I should be a bloody sales rep' for OCC. It would not be hard to do a better job than their present lot. What I wrote:
I am writing to highlight a coming announcement by a company, Orthocell (OCC.AX) which collaborated with Johnson and Johnson on a 4 year randomised controlled trail on autologous tenocyte stem-cells.
Orthocell, by way of a grandfather clause on its/the only approved stem-cell manufacturing facilities in Western Australia University, has performed over 1,000 stem-cell treatments in Australia over a decade.Its gone largely under the radar in both the medical and investment community.
In 2017 J&J sponsored a joint trial in its Autologous Tenocyte Injection (ATI) stem-cell treatment.A phase 2 RCT with corticosteroid injections as a control cohort (there is another OCC alone ATI vs surgery RT likely to complete recruitment this year).The trial has finished and data is being assembled and likely to be announced in coming weeks.
I am sure I do not need to tell you that J&J partnered with Fate Therapeutics in 2020 in iPSC stem-cells with NGK-cell and T-cell treatments. This treatment is far simpler. A biopsy from the knee patellar tendon, cultivation of 10-20,000 tenocyte stem-cells into 5-6 million over 4-6 weeks and reinjection into the degenerative tendon (works best on intrasubstance tears for obvious reasons).
https://www.orthocell.com.au/tendon-regeneration/#How-It-Works
I was a recipient of ATI in 2014 and frankly would be disabled without it.I had a ruptured distal bicep that was repaired by a delayed endo-button surgery.The outcome was poor.Under MRI my tendon was barely discernible under MRI. I was disabled, unable to drive or perform simple tasks like lifting a kettle. I made a complete recovery with ATI and now work out on a punch-bag, surf etc. Whilst my case of course anecdotal, the company has seen 87.5% reported satisfaction from patients on feedback and published a few small peer reviewed studies showing impressive grip strength improvements in tennis elbow sufferers for example.
To disclose, I am invested in the company and write because your “portfolio companies aim to develop interventions that can significantly improve quality of life today by targeting the features of aging.”.Degenerative tendons, or tendinosis is something that wil literally effect most humans.Studies have shown 50% of people over 60 have some form of rotator cuff tear – near 90% in over 80’s – just 4 tendons of the 4,000 we have in our bodies.
There is a distinct possibility that J&J take up a partnership with OCC on the basis of likely positive results in the study – corticosteroids are the injectable treatment of choice amongst medical professionals, but alas only provide pain-relief and do little to address the bio-mechanical pathophysiology of tendinosis.Irrespective, the treatment has excellent merit for sufferers world wide as it mimics and amplifies the body’s own repair process, using the patients own cells.Unlike Mesenchymal stem-cells, tenocyte stem-cells can only become tendon stem-cells.It is a more efficient and arguably safer treatment, that as said, replicates the body’s own repair processes.
It would frankly be a travesty if this treatment does not make its way to market.The company has made some commercial advancement in Australia, but it is limited.The company is also FDA/EMA/TGA approved in an ancillary products, a collagen scaffold it developed itself in application of its other stem-cell treatment, chondrocyte stem-cells, given existing scaffold products on market did not support the application of patients cells in a satisfactory manner. There is additional application in augmentation of the two products in tendons, but that is a longer discussion.
I hope this treatment proves of interest to you given the remit of your company.
(20min delay)