Firm Claims Success Making Knee Cartilage

A German biotechnology company called Amedrix GmbH claims to have developed a one-step minimally-invasive surgical procedure for the treatment of cartilage defects. The process uses cell-free collagen implants with, the company claims, “good autoregeneration of the cartilage defects.”

The firm’s first gel-like implant received approval for the European market in 2012. In December 2013 a liquid application of the product received the European CE certification which insures that the implant is safe and medically-technically efficient.

“Our new product is arthroscopically injected as a liquid collagen implant. Once injected, the liquid collagen forms a stable cartilage replacement in minutes, ” states Thomas Graeve, M.D., CEO of Amedrix. He claims that after injection, cartilage and stem cells from the surrounding tissue migrate into the implant and stimulate the self-healing of the cartilage. Within a short time, the result is a new and resilient cartilage, he says. “Patient MRI studies show that the cartilage defect is nearly completely filled after six months, ” Graeve said.

Amedrix works with the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology (IGB) in Stuttgart to facilitate the manufacturing process. The institute supports a 215-square-meter Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) unit certified for developing production processes for medical devices or cell-based tissue-engineered products. “Our specially trained staff works together with Amedrix employees to isolate collagen protein from animal tendons and then process the collagen.” explains Markus Schandar, head of the GMP Group.