IN BUSINESS Technology to transform hip replacement surgery
APIONEERING Runcorn bioscience firm has been awarded a £174,000 grant to create technology that could revolutionise joint repairs with a particular focus on hips.
SpheriTech, based at the Heath Business And Technology Park, is developing the laboratory-based polymer for the treatment while JRI Orthopaedics will produce the surgical instruments and Cambridge University will undertake clinical trials.
The technology is being designed to regenerate cartilage, which protects joints from pain and erosion.
The total project cost across the three organisations is £781,000, of which £545,000 will be funded by the UK’s innovation agency Innovate UK.
A spokesman for Heath owners SOG Ltd said approximately 180,000 patients have total hip or knee replacements in the UK every year.
Don Wellings, SpheriTech founder and chief executive, said the polymers he and his team are developing have the potential to transform regenerative medicine, including treatment for joint degeneration.
The company is already reported to be making great strides on spinal cord repair and skin healing.
Dr Wellings said: “We believe the new techniques we are developing could ultimately delay hip and other joint replacement operations and potentially make them obsolete in the coming years.”
He added: “Treatment to hips is required when the cartilage in the joint disintegrates, eventually causing bone to rub on bone, making it painful to walk.
“We are developing a polymer that surgeons can insert into the hip joint which will regenerate the cartilage and the underlying bone.
“It means that if the joint deteriora- tion can be caught early enough, using key-hole surgery techniques, surgeons will be able to take away the damaged tissue and replace it with SpheriTech’s polymer.
“The amount of cartilage that generally needs replacing measures about 1-2cm in diameter.
“SpheriTech polymer Proliferate® will be inserted into the joint through a tube, with surgeons using cameras to guide the delivery of the polymer to the prepared site. “It will then regenerate the cartilage and underlying bone thus repairing the joint and avoiding the need for an intrusive and major hip-replacement operation.”
Dr Wellings said the Innovate UK funding will support two years of further research to develop and finetune the polymer and delivery technique which will be followed up by clinical studies.
He believes the polymer technology will trigger repair of the hip joint within weeks.
“This will revolutionise hip treatments – reducing costs to the health care industry, making treatment speedier and safer for patients, reducing post-operative care and the expense of physiotherapy.
“Potentially this new form of treatment could, in the longer term, mini- mise the need for total hip replacements altogether.”
Dr Wellings added: “The current trials are focused on hip joints but this technique can be adapted to treat knee, shoulder and elbow joints.
“Our polymers can also regenerate bone and we are researching how they can be introduced for the treatment of trauma injury which would also revolutionise the way surgeons treat major bone injury.”
SpheriTech is also working on a project to develop synthetic blood by producing artificial red blood cells.
It is hoped the ‘blood substitute’ SpheriSome® Hb could ultimately end ● the necessity for the blood donors’ programme.
Dr Wellings has more than 35 years’ experience in the world of science and is internationally recognised as an authority on peptide synthesis, polymer particle design and chromatography.
He launched SpheriTech in 2009 to develop his novel technology for the manufacture of ‘polymeric microspheres’ for the life science and healthcare industries.
A regular speaker at international bioscience conferences and author of numerous scientific texts, Dr Wellings is also the sole inventor on 17 patents.