In the first year of the project the clinical partners were aquired and signed into the cooperation agreement. The positive opinion of the ethical committee was obtained and a S1 Laboratory was set up to fulfill the requirements of EMA for product safety and quality as the study medication. In parallel, the project was communicated to the public audience and the professionals to make them aware of the benefits of the MukoCell. To make the product available to the market reimbursement was negotiated with public and private insurance companies and obtained the support of two private insurance companies to reimburse treatment with MukoCell.
The exiting quality attributes of the product was submitted formally to PEI and additional required quality attributes were discussed in a meeting and the periodic quality report was submitted. In a product safety report the side effects and complications in 200 patients was submitted to PEI. Due to the absence of major side effects, the product was considered to be correspondingly safe. The transfer of the production line to the new subcontractor, CODON AG, is in process.To validate the product, 14 clinics from three different countries are recruited into a randomised pivotal clinical study. Positive opinion from the Ethics Committee of the Principal Investigator in Germany is obtained, and the application is submitted to the responsible Italian and Swiss agencies.