So, I’m at the age- or beyond- when knees and hips seem to go.  Too many of my friends have run their last marathons.  No longer can they “shake it off” after a few cortisone shots and a slew of OTC (over-the-counter) painkillers.  (I hope I’ve escaped this problem- because I swim and ride bicycles.  These pose infinitely less stress on one’s knees and hips.)

But, like I reported earlier this year, folks are looking to stem cell approaches to fix this problem. And, now, Vericel has entered the fray.  Vericel replaces the cartilage, different from what Dr. Bodor (of the link at the top of this paragraph) does in Napa.   (He does ACL repair).  The firm Vericel specializes in autologous cell therapy- taking cells from the patient and growing new cellular structures; and this knee therapy could work with those suffering from chronic overuse.

As I’ve also reported that many researchers know their stem cell creations need scaffolds, so does Vericel.   They start with the patient’s own cartilage cells (hence the term autologous), which are removed by the patient’s doctor.  The cells are then shipped to Vericel (in Cambridge, MA), where chrondocytes are extracted and induced to grow in culture.  (The cells are immersed in a bath of nutrients, plus selected proteins, for about 10 days.)

The cell-cultured chrondocytes are latched onto biodegradable collagen (which acts as the “scaffold”), where a structure of about 2 cm wide by 5 cm tall is developed. The “mess” is then shipped back to the doctor (currently, some 900 practitioners are qualified to perform this operation), who adjusts the scaffolded cells to match the damage in the patient’s knee (where they are inserted through a small incision), where it is glued into place. [No stitches are used.]

The MACI (Matrix-induced, Autologous Chrondocyte Implantation) then goes to work.  The cells grow through the collagen scaffold (which will eventually dissolve away and disappear), migrate through the damaged cartilage, reaching the bone, to which they adhere.  The new cartilage then grows and fills in any and all gaps in the patient’s damaged knee cartilage, restoring function and alleviating pain.

Vericel began life as AAstrom about 5 years ago.  (Those of you who went to the University of Michigan (or lived in Ann Arbor) recognize the double A.  I fondly recall using A²MI as my address.)  FDA approval was granted in December 2016, and Vericel has been profitable pretty much ever since.  (Given that they treated more than 10,000 patients a year [but their maximum potential from this segment is about 15000 patients]- at a cost of some $ 40K just for the scaffolded cells, that’s not very surprising!  What is surprising- that folks ante up the payment, since it is not covered by most health insurers.)

What is unfortunate is that those suffering from osteoarthritis can’t benefit from this process.  (That’s about 27 million folks in the US alone.)  Right now, it’s for those not-quite senior citizens who don’t want a knee replacement- and have deep pockets.

Did you get my book yet?  The one that will explain to you how the change in the tax code (enacted last December) will affect your personal and business situations?

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