Tech Briefs Magazine - November 2023 - 28

Gold Sponsor
Medical
Finalist
A New Treatment Approach
for Spinal Cord Injury
Johannes Dapprich, Elaine Brock, Jay Trautman,
Jason Puchalla, Eve Tsai, William S. Brown
NeuroPair
Princeton, NJ
S
pinal Cord Injury (SCI) afflicts 17,000 Americans
and 700,000 people worldwide each year. Prognoses
are often tragic, and social costs exceed $2M (U.S.
and EU) in the first five years of care. For decades, the
dream of repairing the spinal cord has been elusive.
Recent studies, however, show that new axonal growth
and formation of functional circuits are possible under
the right conditions: a favorable biophysical environment
in direct contact with surviving nerve endings.
Chances for recovery increase greatly if such an environment
can be provided rapidly after injury.
New Jersey-based NeuroPair's fast and minimally
invasive approach generates an injectable scaffold of
aligned magnetic nanoparticles to create conditions for
protecting, healing, and regrowing neurons that were
damaged during SCI. The scaffold guides the direction
of neuronal regrowth and may help enable recovery from SCI.
Because shape and condition of SCIs vary so much, onesize-fits-all
approaches are very unlikely to succeed. NeuroPair's
injectable hydrogel formulation addresses these needs
by perfectly filling any irregular shape of the injury site, generating
a flexible fiber scaffold with cellular contact for neuronal
regeneration within minutes, suppressing scar formation, and
being compatible with other treatment options (such as stem
cells, neuroprotective and bioactive growth factors, epidural
stimulation, and MRI).
NeuroPair's FibermagTM
treatment would be applied after the
initial, standard stabilization of SCI: The surgeon injects the sterile
formulation into the injury site and places a 'magnetic mouse'
(Figure 1a) directly on top of the injury site. The magnetic field
assembles the particles into a non-toxic and biodegradable scaffold
(Figure 1b). After five minutes, the field is removed, the scaffold
is in place and remains stable yet flexible for weeks (Figure
2). The guided regrowth of axons and neurites along the magnetic
fibers can be seen in vitro by brightfield and fluorescence
microscopy over the course of several days and weeks (Figure
1b). The Fibermag formulation consists of commercially available
core components (biocompatible magnetic nanoparticles and
slow-release bioactive factors in a hyaluronic acid-based gel).
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According to the NeuroPair team, their products could be
easily integrated into treatment by neurosurgeons who presently
treat SCI. The key elements of their technology that neurosurgeons
find attractive are it: 1) provides an injectable scaffold, 2)
conforms to the irregular shape of an injury, 3) suppresses scar
formation, 4) provides a favorable environment for regrowth,
and most importantly 5) is fast and minimally invasive (no surgical
resection of the cord is needed).
In the U.S., there are approximately 600 neurosurgeons
who recommend treatments, drugs, and medical devices
for purchase by their institutions, making the marketing for
our products focused and much simpler than for other therapeutics.
Military and veterans' hospitals in particular will
benefit from NeuroPair's products, as the occurrence of SCI
among active duty service members is 7-20 times higher
than for civilians.
Many SCI patients are lifelong recipients of Medicare and
Medicaid support, leading to U.S. social costs exceeding $51B
each year. According to the NeuroPair team, restoring patients'
quality of life and functionality, their products can potentially
reduce U.S. healthcare costs by 3 percent.
For more information, visit https://contest.techbriefs.
com/2023/entries /12495.
www.techbriefs.com
Tech Briefs, November 2023
http://www.createthefuturecontest.com https://contest.techbriefs.com/2023/entries/12495 http://www.techbriefs.com
Tech Briefs Magazine - November 2023

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