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Resources for partners, clinicians, investors, and healthcare professionals.
Bone & Cartilage
Orthobiologics is an exciting and growing treatment option for bone and cartilage injury. The category is commonly depicted as the use of naturally occurring biologic substances, such as scaffolds, cells or proteins, to help heal injuries to bone, cartilage, tendons or ligaments. Orthobiologic products originate from multiple sources. If the product comes directly from the patient, it is an autograft. If the product comes from donated human tissue, it is an allograft. In some cases, biologic materials may also be a combination of synthetic and biologic materials, such as NELL1.
While estimates to the size of this market vary depending on source, it is generally agreed to by an $8 to $10.2 billion market by 2025.
NELL1 plays a critical role in early bone formation, repair after injury, and degenerative diseases such as osteoporosis.
The field is still pioneering treatments in this area. Interestingly to treat bone loss in space, NELL1 was used to treat osteoporosis in microgravity-induced bone loss in a recent NASA/UCLA/CASIS Research Project on the International Space Station (ISS).
This study was initially based on scientific data from a mouse mutant loss-of function/knockout model generated by Dr. Culiat at NellOne while at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
While orthobiologics are not a focus of NellOne, the investigational outcomes further accentuate the litheness of the NELL1 protein as a potential regenerative therapy platform.
