http://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/56536/tissue-regenixs-commercialisation-plans-boosted-by-impressive-trial--56536.html
Tissue Regenix's commercialisation plans boosted by impressive trial
By Philip Whiterow May 06 2013, 12:36pm
Tissue Regenix’s (LON:TRX) plans to commercialise its novel regenerative technology for the human body took a big step forward with impressive results from a NHS trial in Manchester.
Twenty patients suffering from chronic leg ulcers were treated with a skin graft that used Tissue Regenix’s dCELL process.
Of these, more than half, 12, were completely healed while the remaining eight people saw their wound shrink by more than 50% in all but one case.
In any trial the results would have been good, but were especially eye-catching given it was carried out in a hospital clinic, without anaesthetic, on actual patients.
Antony Odell, Tissue’s managing director, was understandably pleased with the results, especially as the patients had been selected for the long-term nature of their condition he told Proactive Investors.
“The average age of the ulcer for the trial was five years. These were things that had had everything else thrown at them already and we managed to heal over half of them.”
The trial was for a new clinical product, dCELL Human Dermis, for the NHS' Blood and Transplant Tissue Service (NHSBT).
After the success of the trial the product will now become available for use by the NHS from the middle of summer.
dCELL technology uses a process that “washes” the donor tissue. It removes the DNA and cells and leaves a scaffold for the recipient patients' own cells to re-populate and regenerate living, functional skin tissue.
Because the tissue has been re-populated by a patient’s own cells, it is not rejected by their immune system.
Odell said the dCELL Dermis has the potential to help many patients but was also a critical part of its plans to commercialise other treatments that use dCELL technology.
Care and treatment of ulcers takes up 1% of the NHS’s total budget, costing £400mln per year, while the total global market is predicted to be worth £16bn by 2015.
The next step will see a paper on the trial results presented at the Symposium on Advanced Wound Care (SAWC) in Denver this week by Dr Ardeshir Bayat, who led the study in Manchester.
Odell says Dr Bayat is very interested in how wounds heal and this was a key part of the trial in Manchester.
“One of the things we did was to monitor the depth of the wound and how it was healing so we could understand why it healed and why what we are doing that is different.
“Understanding when you have to use these treatments and how you use them is very important and in this regard Tissue Regenix is going into much greater depth than almost anybody else.
"We think this will give us a unique position in the market place. When people ask why should we pay money for this treatment, we can then explain why they should.”
Even though the recent tiral was with the NHS, Odell sees the US as potentially the major source of revenue going forward.
“Treating these type of wounds cost everyone’s healthcare system lots of money.“ he said.