Speaker: Biologics are the future of medicine
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WAILEA, Hawaii — With its anti-inflammatory properties, regular use of regenerative medicine in orthopedics looks promising, according to a speaker at Orthopedics Today Hawaii 2021, here.
“There 54 million American adults with arthritis. Arthritis of the knee is the biggest enemy and that involves all of us,” C. Thomas Vangsness Jr., MD, emeritus professor of orthopedic surgery at Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California Los Angeles, and co-founder and chief scientist of Mend Biotech Inc., said.
Vangsness discussed the confusing clinical practice guidelines and OA study design issues related to the common biologic options of hyaluronic acid, blood products, bone marrow, adipose and placenta products that are available in 2021.
“In 2021, you cannot do stem cell injections in the United States – simple fact. There is no stem cell drug for musculoskeletal disorders in the United States. There is only one approved stem cell drug in the United States, which is cord blood for hematopoietic reconstruction,” he said.
Vangsness said the future is having biologic injections done in clinics, as well as the development of better definitions of stem cells and exosomes.
“They are the future of medicine,” he said.
The FDA will continue its monitoring. Additionally, he said there will continue to be an increase in the number of level-1 clinical studies globally.
“Insurance companies are not going to pay for this until they see level 1 evidence. Cash is what we are talking about right now, but the use will increase. Safety certainly appears to be there, but we need more level 1 studies because nothing has been done on exosomes to date,” he said. “My goal is to drive [cost] down to get a small $200 or $300 injection that will not hurt patients’ pocketbooks until we can get it through level 1, so we can decrease the osteoarthritis in the knee. That is the future.”
Vangsness said organizations are looking at biologics at a level-1 scientific functional level. The Biologic Association, which started in the fall of 2019, will hold its second meeting at the AOSSM-AANA Combined 2021 Annual Meeting in July. The AAOS also started its biologic committee in the spring of 2020.
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Vangsness CT. The use of biologics in knee disease and pathology. Presented at: Orthopedics Today Hawaii 2021; May 30-June 3, 2021; Wailea, Hawaii.
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