Orthocell Limited (ASX:OCC) Managing Director, Paul Anderson talks about advances in regenerative medicine, the company's product line up and commercialisation.
Rachael Jones: Hello, I'm Rachael Jones for the Finance News Network. Joining me now from Orthocell Limited
(ASX:OCC) is Managing Director Paul Anderson. Paul, welcome back to FNN.
Paul Anderson: Thanks for having me.
Rachael Jones: First up, Paul, could you start by giving us an introduction to your company?
Paul Anderson: Sure. Orthocell Limited
(ASX:OCC) works within the agenda of medicine space. In particular, we're addressing unmet clinical needs in the musculoskeletal medicine. To do that, we've really focused on the regeneration of human tendon tissue, human bone tissue, human cartilage, and human nerve. We've developed two specific products to address these.
One is a collagen-based medical device called CelGro, and the other is a cellular therapeutic approach to the regeneration of human tendon tissue, which is called Ortho-ATI, ATI standing for autologous tenocyte implantation, meaning we're taking cells from you, tenocyte cells from you, and we're cultivating those in a very special laboratory, which is licensed by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). Then we're injecting those cells back into the damaged tendon tissue. Two products, CelGro and Ortho-ATI.
Rachael Jones: Thanks, Paul. Now before we talk about your products, can you tell us a little bit about the technology?
Paul Anderson: Sure. The technology has been developed from the University of Western Australia. It's been developed around some very specific unmet clinical needs. We see within medicine today that we're looking for cost effective, minimally invasive ways of treating patients that we don't treat that well today. Predominantly what we're doing is providing innovation to orthopedic surgeons and clinicians to treat those tissue types that I described earlier.
Rachael Jones: Can you tell me the size of the market?
Paul Anderson: Yes. These markets are significant. We're talking about billion dollar markets globally. For instance, the initial market for our CelGro scaffold for guided bone regeneration, a 15% market share for that for instance would result in a AUD$50 million market for us at Orthocell Limited
(ASX:OCC).
Rachael Jones: Excellent. Now to your sales and collaborations, can you tell me more starting with CelGro?
Paul Anderson: Yeah. CelGro is a very exciting innovation for us. We've just received our first regulatory approval. It's called a Conformité Européene (CE) mark. It's given us marketing authorisation to sell the product within the European market. That's enabled us to move from a Research and Development (R&D) company now into a company that's generating sales and really pushing for market share into those markets. From a collaboration perspective, we've recently appointed distribution partners in the United Kingdom (UK), in Italy, Poland, and soon to be appointing a distribution partners within the Spanish and German markets also.
Rachael Jones: Can you tell me about Ortho-ATI?
Paul Anderson: Ortho-ATI is a cellular therapeutic approach to the regeneration of degenerate human tendon tissue. Ortho-ATI is the only nonsurgical approach to healing degenerate tendon tissue within the body.
Rachael Jones: Now to your pathway for commercialisation and to your share price.
Paul Anderson: Sure. Having received our Conformité Européene (CE) mark and being able to now market our products in Europe, we set about a very defined pathway to that market. We have developed a network of key opinion leaders or brand ambassadors. Some of the very best surgeons in the world have now joined us to help promote and to provide a pathway to market and to help educate other clinicians within the market. We've also appointed a very strong distribution partnership network.
It's not our intention to have a direct sales force, but leveraging off of very well experienced groups within the market that can help promote our product and produce the sales that we are forecasting and predicting for.
Rachael Jones: What is the strategy for your sales and for the timeframe?
Paul Anderson: It's really important in these markets to lay a strong foundation. You need to have good clinical collaborations. You need to have strong university-based collaborations. You need to continue to develop your clinical excellence and the evidence-based behind your product and to create a foundation that provides you for exponential growth over the next three to four years.
Rachael Jones: Paul, could you provide us with a comment on your share price over the next 12 months?
Paul Anderson: This is a really exciting time for Orthocell Limited
(ASX:OCC). We're really moving from an Research and Development (R&D) company now into a company which his executing in markets where we have approval. As a result of that, we're going to see increased sales of our product, increase revenues within the company, and really form a foundation for us to execute as a sales oriented company as opposed to an Research and Development (R&D) company.
Rachael Jones: Last question, Paul, what can investors expect in the terms of news flow over the next 12 months?
Paul Anderson: As we move through the development of these markets, we're pushing into not just the European market, we also have our application for approval within the United States (US) market. Obviously a very large and exciting and important market for investors. We're also driving to the Australian and Asian markets. We're going to be seeing regulatory approvals. We're going to be seeing increase sales within the company, and we're going to see as a result of that an increase discussions around collaborations with major partners.
Rachael Jones: Paul Anderson, thanks for the update.
Paul Anderson: Many thanks, thanks for having me.
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