Pre‐clinical Development of Organoid‐derived Chondrocyte Product for Articular Cartilage Repair

We have developed a technically simple, scalable, cGMP‐compatible method to generate hyaline cartilage from human induced pluripotent stem cells. This innovative process is expected to provide a virtually unlimited supply of hyaline cartilage to serve as a source of therapeutic chondrocytes for cartilage repair. We envision these cells being used to treat traumatic cartilage injuries such as occur in athletic events or automobile accidents and they may also be useful in the treatment of osteoarthritis which is a common and growing health concern in our aging population. The current proposal will enable the next step in our therapeutic chondrocyte product development by providing support to test our chondrocyte product in an animal model of cartilage injury. This will provide critical proof‐of‐concept data to assess the safety and effectiveness of our product and establish the basis for larger follow‐up studies aimed ultimately at getting FDA approval.