An Israeli biotech company has introduced an innovative way to replace lost bone in a minimally invasive fashion.
An Israeli startup biotech company announced on Monday that it is the first in the world to successfully use lab-grown bone tissue to repair bone loss.
The startup, Bonus BioGroup, said it injected the semi-liquid bone graft, which was harvested from patients’ own fat cells, into the jaws of 11 patients and successfully hardened and merged with existing bone to repair damage during the early stage of clinical trials.
“For the first time worldwide, reconstruction of deficient or damaged bone tissue is achievable by growing viable human bone graft in a laboratory, and transplanting it back to the patient in a minimally invasive surgery via injection,” Bonus Biogroup CEO Shai Meretzki said in a statement to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
Meretzki told Israel’s i24 News that traditional methods of repairing bone damage involved obtaining bone samples from the pelvic crest, which is an invasive, painful and expensive procedure. Other methods included using synthetic substances or obtaining cells from bone banks, which risk the patient’s body rejecting the transplant.
“I was looking for a way to do it cheaper and easier for the patient and the medical system,” Meretzki said. “We are growing bone through small samples of fat tissue and isolating the different kinds of cells that we need to create the bone.”
So far the Israeli biotech startup has raised some $14 million and the company plans to dual list on the Nasdaq stock exchange in the coming months.
Ora Burger, the company’s vice president of regulation affairs, told Reuters that the transplant “was 100 percent successful in all 11 patients” and that the company plans to conduct further clinical trials.
“Now we are going to conduct a clinical study in the extremities, long bones,” she added.
Israeli doctors have recently introduced another innovative way of treating lost jaw bones by implanting 3D-printed jaws, which cuts surgery and recovery time to a minimum and ensures a greater success rate.
Israel is considered a global leader in the biotech scene, and Israeli companies have introduced numerous solutions in several spheres of research, improving the lives of mankind in various facets.
By: JNS.org and United with Israel Staff
