I-Corps: Improving Performance of Osteochondral Grafts for Cartilage Repair

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Injuries to knees and other joints often cause damage and defects in the cartilage tissue cushioning joints, and significant pain, decreasing patient activity. Traditional surgical treatments for cartilage damage are not able to provide patients with long-term effective outcomes. This means that subsequent more aggressive surgeries will be required following the original treatment. More recently, there has been a paradigm shift to treat defects with an osteochondral allograft ? a plug of cartilage and bone tissue that is donated by a fresh cadaver. This technique is exciting because, once the graft is healed, it has the ability to restore the patient's cartilage structure and provide mechanical stability. Although this procedure has high success compared to alternative treatments, there are several limitations. One is occasional clinical failures where the osteochondral allograft does not heal properly in the bone region. The other is the limited supply of the grafts from tissue banks due to their short shelf-life. To improve the success and supply of these grafts, this I-Corps team aims to implement a cleansing technology to enhance bone repair and to increase shelf-life. Ultimately, these improvements will improve patient quality of life by improving graft integration and increasing patient access to the procedure. Additionally, tissue banks will be able to extend their supply through increased shelf-life, leading to increased revenue.This I-Corps team is developing a bioinert cleansing procedure that will allow for the removal of biological inhibitors from osteochondral allografts without causing damage to the cartilage. This technology builds upon current donor tissue bank procedures and can be added to the current storage process, prior to graft distribution to hospitals. The team plans to conduct customer interviews with orthopaedic surgeons, allograft tissue banks, patients, and other stakeholders throughout the I-Corps program. During the I-Corps program, the team will assess commercial viability. If this is demonstrated, the next steps of development will further demonstrate technology performance and move forward with a commercialization plan. Throughout the development phases, the team will continue to obtain feedback from end-users and customers to validate that the technology meets the market need and demonstrates commercial viability.