Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SINPAIN (A game changer for the treatment of osteoarthritis: a cost effective combined advanced therapy to treat knee osteoarthritis)
Período documentado: 2022-05-01 hasta 2023-10-31
The SINPAIN project aims to provide new tools for the treatment and diagnosis of osteoarthritis (OA), a disease that affects more than 500 million people worldwide. Long considered a “wear and tear” condition of the elderly, it is now known that OA is a highly complex disease of the entire joint affecting a large proportion of the population under the age of 65. There is currently no cure for OA, and current treatment options are often costly and inefficient.
The contribution of SINPAIN to the management of OA focuses on three main aspects: 1) a product pipeline of safe, efficient and cost-effective therapies that could not only stop but reverse the course of the disease, 2) a new tool to support personalised diagnosis and treatment and 3) a comprehensive characterisation of the cells involved in OA’s pathogenesis. The new treatment combines novel RNA-based medicines that block molecular sources of inflammation and pain, an improved intraarticular hydrogel based on hyaluronic acid and smart delivery systems for anti-inflammatory drugs. If successful, SINPAIN technology will be instrumental in alleviating pain and slowing down disease progression for countless patients.
The contribution of SINPAIN to the management of OA focuses on three main aspects: 1) a product pipeline of safe, efficient and cost-effective therapies that could not only stop but reverse the course of the disease, 2) a new tool to support personalised diagnosis and treatment and 3) a comprehensive characterisation of the cells involved in OA’s pathogenesis. The new treatment combines novel RNA-based medicines that block molecular sources of inflammation and pain, an improved intraarticular hydrogel based on hyaluronic acid and smart delivery systems for anti-inflammatory drugs. If successful, SINPAIN technology will be instrumental in alleviating pain and slowing down disease progression for countless patients.
During its first 18 months, SINPAIN selected small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) that silence the expression of IL1B and NGF (signals for inflammation and pain) and developed prototypes of efficient vectors to deliver these siRNAs into cells. It also produced modified hydrogels of hyaluronic acid that possess self-healing properties and that can be injected intraarticularly. Moreover, emulsifiers that can be used as smart systems to slowly deliver ibuprofen or other drugs are also being generated. All these developments go hand in hand with a deep analysis of the regulatory requirements that will allow a successful transition into clinics in the future. In that sense, the final products of SINPAIN will be classified as combined medicinal product at fixed dose. Also, it is important to add that the experimental work is guided by the regulatory pathway established during the first reporting period, to ensure that the most relevant experiment plan is carried out.
At the same time, the multidisciplinary team in SINPAIN is exerting in setting up optimal methods to find out the specific cells in the cartilage and synovia that send these inflammation and pain signals into the body using human knee sample from patients having prosthesis implant surgery. Furthermore, systems to study how different cell types interact in OA are being developed. Finally, a significant amount of healthy and osteoarthritic people have volunteered to have their knees imaged (magnetic resonance, computerised tomography and X-rays), information that is being used to identify anatomic features used in a machine learning tool to elaborate a new decision making to diagnose the disease more precisely.
At the same time, the multidisciplinary team in SINPAIN is exerting in setting up optimal methods to find out the specific cells in the cartilage and synovia that send these inflammation and pain signals into the body using human knee sample from patients having prosthesis implant surgery. Furthermore, systems to study how different cell types interact in OA are being developed. Finally, a significant amount of healthy and osteoarthritic people have volunteered to have their knees imaged (magnetic resonance, computerised tomography and X-rays), information that is being used to identify anatomic features used in a machine learning tool to elaborate a new decision making to diagnose the disease more precisely.
Albeit a bit early to have results beyond the state of the art, it is noteworthy that the decision-making tool is already available online (https://restore-project.ru.is/#:~:text=RESTORE%20Project%20%40%20Reykjavik%20University,25%20females%2C%2022%20males) and is expected to be a new baseline for the diagnosis of OA by being more precise and able to administer the correct treatment to slow down the disease progression.