According to Reuters the Israeli company Bonus Biogroup announced successful clinical trial results, after extracting fat cells from the bodies of eleven patients and creating a semi-liquid bone graft that they brand as ‘BonoFill.’ The patients had suffered bone loss in the jaw, and the BonoFill material was successfully used to repair the damaged areas. The company reported a successful result for all eleven patients.
Current medicine uses three primary bone repair methods, including allowing the bone to heal on its own by placing it in a cast, removing the bone entirely and replacing it with a synthetic version, or by grafting other bone material (usually from another area on the patient’s body) onto the affected area. The former is seen as time-consuming and risky, while the latter two are known to be painful and expensive.
Shai Meretzki, founder and CEO of Bonus Biogroup, claims that BonoFill is superior, as it is minimally invasive (only requiring a single injection), and runs no risk of the body rejecting the new bone matter, because it is derived from the patient’s own DNA. The healing process is also faster, claims the businessman.
When the company announced the trial results, their stock rose 9.5 percent on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. This gain lasted for about a day, and by the next it was back down to where it had been the previous week.
BonoFill sees many clinical trials ahead before it will be marketed to the healthcare industry. Another company official, Ora Burger, told Reuters that the next trial will be targeted at the long bones in the extremities.
Despite being a tiny nation of less than nine million, Israel is one of the world leaders in biotechnical and biomedical technology. The Times of Israel claimed in May 2016 that 25-28 percent of the world’s biotech-based innovations originate from Israeli companies, laboratories, or universities.
