A simple shot shows promise to reverse osteoarthritis within weeks

A research team including scientists and engineers from University of Colorado Boulder, CU Anschutz and Colorado State University has developed a suite of new therapies that prompt aging or damaged joints to repair themselves within weeks, according to animal studies.

The new osteoarthritis treatments include a single, regenerative injection to a joint and a biomaterial repair kit that recruits the body’s own cells to patch holes in damaged cartilage.

To expedite the research, the federal Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) announced this week that the multidisciplinary team will advance to the next phase of the project.

The project is under the ARPA-H Novel Innovations for Tissue Regeneration in Osteoarthritis (NITRO) program. NITRO is led by ARPA-H Program Manager Dr. Ross Uhrich.

“In two years, we were able to go from a moonshot idea to developing these therapies to demonstrating that they reverse osteoarthritis in animals,” said principal investigator Stephanie Bryant, professor of chemical and biological engineering at CU Boulder. “Our goal is not just to treat pain and halt progression, but to end this disease.”

Osteoarthritis is the third most common disease in the U.S., impacting roughly one in six people over age 30 worldwide. It causes cartilage, the buffering tissue that keeps bones from grinding together, to decay. Over time, it can damage bone too, reshaping the joint and making movement excruciating.

Patients are generally limited to two options: treat the pain or replace the joint. There is no cure. To move toward one, the Colorado team is taking two approaches.

Two-pronged strategy to heal joints

The first centers around repurposing an existing drug already approved by the Food and Drug Administration and applying it to treat osteoarthritis. Bryant, a materials scientist, and her colleagues developed a patented particle delivery system that can be injected into the joint and provide intermittent bursts of the drug for months.

For those with significant lesions in cartilage or bone, the team also developed a cocktail of engineered proteins that can be injected arthroscopically and cured into place, where it recruits the body’s own progenitor cells to patch the gap.

When the team used the injection to treat animals with arthritic joints and injuries, the joints returned to a healthy state within four to eight weeks. When they patched holes in bone or cartilage, they saw “full regeneration and repair of the defect,” said Bryant. In human cells derived from patients undergoing joint replacements, the therapies had a clear regenerative effect.

NITRO was the inaugural program of ARPA-H, created to develop “minimally invasive therapeutics that fully regenerate damaged joints.”

With phase one successfully complete, the team is now advancing to phase two.

“It’s super exciting to be a part of the very first program of ARPA-H and to be one of the first teams to advance to the second phase,” said Bryant.

What this could mean for patients

Dr. Evalina Burger, professor and chair of the Department of Orthopedics at CU Anschutz, said she has seen osteoarthritis afflict everyone from grandparents who can’t comb their hair without shoulder pain to runners and hockey players who had to give up the sport they love due to knee or back pain.

“At the moment, the options for many patients are either a massive, expensive surgery or nothing. There’s not a lot in between,” said Burger, who has been following the team’s research with interest. “That’s why ARPA-H is so important.”

She and Bryant imagine a day when those in the earlier stages of the disease could access an affordable single-dose therapy to keep their joints healthy for years. Those with injured tissue could have it fixed in a single doctor’s visit with a quick recovery.

The team hopes to publish their animal findings in a peer-reviewed journal later this year and has formed a company, Renovare Therapeutics Inc. to move toward commercialization.

If future studies go according to plan, Bryant anticipates clinical trials could be underway in as soon as 18 months.

“This could be a real game-changer for patients,” said Bryant.