Thousands of spinal cord injuries occur annually, primarily resulting from trauma caused in traffic accidents, falls and sports. In the U.S alone, over 17,000 new SCI cases are reported each year. SCI patients usually suffer irreversible damage with further tissue degeneration. SCI patients are 2 to 5 times more likely to suffer premature death, and bear tremendous healthcare costs ranging from $350,000 to $1 million in the first year alone. Matricelf’s regenerative medicine platform brings new hope to SCI patients across the world – a future when they will be able to lead productive and independent lives.
The process begins with a small biopsy, taken from the omentum tissue by an abdominal incision. The omental biopsy undergoes a proprietary decellularization process that separates stromal cells, from which induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are grown, and extracellular matrix (ECM), from which our proprietary thermo-responsive hydrogel is produced.
When combining the hydrogel with the iPSCs, functional, patient-specific spinal cord implants are created capable of bridging injured spinal tissue.
Matricelf has achieved successful pre-clinical results on animals with spinal cord injuries, with 100% of the treated Spinal-cord injury regaining their walking ability following treatment with the Matricelf SCI regenerated implant. The unprecedented outcome paved the way for a first human clinical trial scheduled for 2022.