Mesoblast tech may be used to treat injured AFL star

The orthopaedic surgeon of an injured AFL football player is considering using Melbourne-based stem cell specialist Mesoblast's (ASX:MSB) technology to accelerate bone regeneration in the footballer's fractured leg, the company has claimed.

Richmond's Nathan Brown fractured his tibia during a match against Melbourne in late May. He was operated on shortly afterwards, but doubts remain about his playing future.

Mesoblast's founder and chief scientific adviser, Prof Silviu Itescu, said that the company was hoping Brown's fracture healed perfectly well, and that he would not need the Mesoblast stem cell treatment.

"But we're talking about the possibility of harvesting his own cells, growing them up in large numbers and having them banked as an insurance policy in case he doesn't have good healing a couple of months from now," he said.

Itescu said Mesoblast intended to begin clinical trials within the next few weeks, focusing on patients with delayed union fractures of the type experienced by Brown. If Brown's fracture does not heal, "he would absolutely be a candidate for the trials," said Itescu.

Mesoblast uses proprietary technology to extract purified mesenchymal precursor cells from bone marrow. Over four to six weeks, billions more stem cells are grown from these original purified mesenchymal precursor cells and then implanted back into the patient, potentially accelerating bone and fracture repair.

"These sort of bone fractures heal because local stem cells are sufficient to allow the natural process to take place, but in the older patient where there is a deficiency of stem cells, or in patients like this footballer who have a very severe type of tibial, or long bone fracture, there may not be sufficient numbers of stem cells to adequately repair the bone," said Itescu.

In the current situation, the stem cells would only be injected if Brown's fracture does not heal. However, Itescu hopes that in the future, high-risk individuals such as elite footballers will pay AUD$20,000 to bank their stem cells so that they can be injected when the fracture is initially treated.

"In my mind, there's no downside for most of these football clubs, considering banking cells of their elite players," said Itescu.

Mesoblast's aim is to develop an off-the-shelf product at a tenth of this price which will use an unrelated donor population of cells, instead of using the patient's own stem cells.