Evaluation of Safety and Exploratory Efficacy of CARTISTEM®, a Cell Therapy Product for Articular Cartilage Defects

The purpose of this study is to determine whether CARTISTEM, a cell therapeutic product, is safe and effective in the treatment of articular cartilage defects of the knee as a result of ageing, trauma, or degenerative diseases.

Conventional treatment modalities have not been able to provide complete and sustained resolution of symptoms following damage to the articular cartilage. Despite the numerous techniques available today, complete healing of damaged or defective cartilage or consistent reproduction of normal hyaline cartilage does not occur, and continuous drug administration or secondary surgeries are common. Research in mesenchymal stem cells has had a rapid acceleration over the past decade and MSC-based therapy has become one of the objects of investigation for a new branch of medicine termed regenerative medicine. This emerging technology shows great promise for producing transplantable cartilage constructs to restore the function of degenerated joints. CARTISTEM®, a combination of human umbilical cord blood-derived mesenchymal stem cells and sodium hyaluronate, is intended to be used as a single-dose cellular therapeutic agent for cartilage regeneration in human subjects with cartilage defects of the knee as a result of ageing, trauma, or degenerative diseases.