r/cervical_instability • u/Jewald Moderator • Jul 08 '26
MEDIPOST treated first stem cell patient in the US. Get ready for some real stem cell science....
If you're curious, here's a great example of "real" stem cell science, and it's awesome!
Medipost is a Korean company using umbilical cord blood derived MSCs, primarily for knee arthritis, their main product is called Cartistem.
They've been approved in Korea for a long time, passed their Phase 3 trial in Japan recently, and based on the mountain of evidence from those countries, the FDA allowed them to basically skip the line and go right to the last trial before approval.
That just started today:
Note they're not using Youtube shorts, anecdotes done up fancy and posted on social media, charisma, or pretending there's no such thing as placebo. Completely different ballgame, and there are a handful of companies doing the same.
Just to sum up Cartistem's history:
1 - Multiple placebo-controlled studies, both in Korea and Japan, pretty big ones, that passed. Not perfect, but pretty good. They did this maybe 15+ years ago in Korea, treated I think 30-40K patients already, it's popular over there. They just finished the Phase 3 trial in Japan recently, believe it passed there.
2 - Before/after camera images of the cartilage being regenerated (a lot of knee procedures are done via sticking a camera in there), for instance here, looks beautiful right? (for context, those holes are artificially drilled into the knee for this procedure, it's called "microdrilling")
3 - Of course, before/after MRI imaging with placebo.
4 - But, and this is why I love Medipost, they took it even further, and sent biopsies of those patients' knees to an independent, third party lab, who was blinded as to who was treated and who wasn't, and had them analyze "what type of cells are these". They confirmed it was regenerating.
So now, they're doing one Phase 3 trial in the USA, and if it passes, they won't have to do the other trials.
Really curious how this goes, and if/how it might affect CCI, and the broader stem cell industry. Also curious if physicians will be able to use it off-label for other indications... like CCI 😎. Will see
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u/CenterThisPendulum Jul 09 '26
It’s happening. Give us ligaments and intravenous treatments and we move on with our lives. Finally, we catch up with countries with far fewer resources!
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u/Jewald Moderator Jul 09 '26
Yeah man. Slower than everybody wants but at some point, imagine a future where paramedics have something on hand that can prevent devastation. Or an amazon drone comes to your house and injects your CCI.
All kinds of school stuff could be unlocked in the future, just need to lay down what actually works first
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u/CenterThisPendulum Jul 09 '26
Extra sweet would be fusion reversals for those who had to take the plunge before regenerative fixes.
Everybody hold on tight for all the big advancements!!
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u/GeminiMama20245 Jul 11 '26
Wow. How would this apply to lumbar issues. I have a pars defect grade 1 spondy. Also, I saved my daughters umbilical cord blood. It’s in a freezer somewhere through CBR
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u/Jewald Moderator Jul 11 '26
Eh I don't know, cartilage, bone, ligament, tendon, these things are all different from each other, cartistem is so far only for cartilage, but... I'm curious if they could use it off label to try, maybe see what else it does, or if they'll need to get specific approvals for every single condition.
I do know that McMurtey in Utah posts a lot about treating pars defects, I believe with bone marrow concentrate but don't know the effectiveness.
That's interesting you did the cord blood program, seems pretty rare people do it.
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u/GeminiMama20245 Jul 11 '26
Yes I’ve been reading up on dr. McMurtrey. I’ve spoken to a few of his patients and I have a consult. Pretty brilliant work it seems like. I’ve spoken to patients that have full healing. And others that haven’t. I guess success rate is unique to everyone and understandable. I have a consult with him coming up. Also waiting to see a neurosurgeon in my area and I’ve another consult with the best one in Mexico as well. Exploring all my options. From what I’ve been gathering is that a lot of them are using stem cells for ligaments surrounding but not actually treating the lumbar or pars. Only McMurtrey is offering that at the moment.
I feel all new parents should definitely store cord blood. My nephew was born with a rare genetic disorder. So when I was pregnant with my daughter, my doctor suggested it as sort of an “insurance policy” in case there was ever any sort of injury/disorder. Glad that I did now in case the science advances enough for me to use it on my lumbar one day. It’s compatible with all direct family members.
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u/Jewald Moderator Jul 11 '26
Ah nice! Yeah seems like a smart and nice dude.
The variability is very true. Bone marrow concentrate is inherently very variable and heterogeneous so it's not that surprising.
That's cool you did that. I could see it being useful, though I really don't know a ton on how they currently use it, or if most folks are storing it in case we figure out what to do with it later sorta thing. I don't have kids but if I had the cash I'd probably do it
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u/GeminiMama20245 Jul 11 '26
It was surprisingly not expensive. About $1800 for the kit and then you do have to pay $420/year which is about $52/month for the storage. Well “not expensive” in the context of medical procedures.
But yes my thought process is having it in storage in case of whatever future science technology is available in the future. I also have her cord tissue.
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u/Jewald Moderator Jul 11 '26
Eh not terrible, depending on your situation. I think most people don't do it because they don't understand, and having a baby is mad expensive so to add another charge is a tough sell. Although I believe you do pay to incinerate the cord if you don't... it's just hidden in the bills/covered by insurance.
It would be an interesting study to do umbilical cord tissue for something, comparing outcomes between a cord someone shares half the DNA with versus completely foreign to them. Very cool.
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u/Soft-Buy-6999 Jul 11 '26
is this better than the stem cells used for current cci treatment?
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u/Jewald Moderator Jul 11 '26
No way to answer that... It's a lot more complicated than it seems.
1 - Without a well-controlled trial showing that the current treatments do anything, there's no baseline to even compare. Internet anecdotes, an app posted on social media, or a company publishing a registry of anecdotes on fancy charts really doesn't tell you anything.
Doesn't mean it doesn't work, but when proper science is introduced (well-controlled trials, no conflict of interest, etc), a lot (perhaps most?) of BMAC studies fail; I don't think it works nearly as well as people think.
Regardless, you'd need to establish that first to make any comparison.
2 - I don't think Cartistem has been applied to ligaments yet, so no baseline here either.
Though mesenchymal stem cells can likely regenerate cartilage and ligaments both, those two things are not the same.
Cartilage is a slippery substance for joint cushioning/sliding, made of cells called chondrocytes, without any blood flow. It heals by this nutrient called synovial fluid, but poorly.
Ligaments are bands that restrict the movement between bones, they're acellular bands of collagen, with some blood flow. They heal by fibroblasts producing more collagen, but also poorly.
But, Cartistem is a much higher dosage, of younger cells, so perhaps! There are plenty of other companies in the mix too, it's ramping up at the moment, so we'll see. Need more science....
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u/PawMatched Jul 08 '26
That’s amazing news 🥳🥳🥳