Orthocell (ASX:OCC) has received ethical approval from St John of God Hospital Subiaco in Western Australia for a pilot clinical study for its Celgro™ collagen scaffold.
This will begin in the second quarter 2015 to examine its safety and effectiveness to help repair bone loss around dental implants.
It will also demonstrate that Celgro™ can be used as a barrier membrane to allow bone growth without competition from other connective tissue.
The study will be performed in collaboration with leading West Australian maxillofacial surgeon Dr Brent Allan and the University of Western Australia.
There is a large market opportunity for the product with more than 3 million dental implant procedures carried out in the U.S. every year.
The global orthopaedic soft tissue repair market was worth approximately US$7 billion (A$9 billion) in 2013 and is expected to be worth more than US$10 billion by 2020.
Guided bone regeneration is the main standard of care to support new bone formation at dental implant sites. A barrier membrane is placed over the bone defect to allow the ingrowth of bone without competition from gum tissue.
Celgro™ is completely pure and free from cells and reactive DNA. It was developed for use in surgical applications such as tendon repair, dental applications and restructuring of damaged soft tissue in the body.
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