Orthocell Ltd (ASX:OCC) will move ahead with a study comparing surgery for severe tennis elbow to Orthocell’s cell therapy Ortho-ATI injection, after receiving ethics approval to conduct the study.
The primary endpoint of the study is to show that a single non-invasive treatment of Ortho-ATI is superior or equivalent to the more costly and invasive surgical intervention for the repair of severe, treatment-resistant Lateral Epicondylitis.
The clinical trials will be conducted by two of Australia’s leading elbow surgeons with ethics approval received from The Avenue Hospital in Melbourne.
The study follows publication of Orthocell’s positive pilot study results announced in April 2015 in the prestigious American Journal of Sports Medicine.
Patient recruitment for the study will commence in Q3 2016.
The U.S., Europe and Japanese markets for tennis elbow treatment was estimated to be worth US$700 million in 2015.
This study is an important step towards validating Ortho-ATI as a viable alternative to surgery since the standard surgical approach for tennis elbow has had mixed success rates.
Orthocell held $5 million in cash as at 31 March 2016 and received a R&D tax incentive cash refund of $1.5 million in May.
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