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Investors believe in Bone Therapeutics

April 12th 2018

After months of uncertainty, Bone Therapeutics has managed to raise investments totalling 19.45 million euros. CEO Thomas Liénard explains how the funds were collected and, more importantly, how he intends to use them!

How did you raise these funds?

Thomas Liénard: ‘We offered investors convertible bonds, which are a financial instrument that enables them to loan money to a company. Instead of reimbursing the loan at the end of the period, the company converts it into shares. As of now, our investors have injected 6 million euros into Bone Therapeutics. The remaining 13.45 million will be provided over the next 18 months.’

How will you use the funds?

‘They will allow us to operate until the end of Q3, 2019. In practical terms, we will continue our work on optimising manufacturing processes for our drugs. We will also continue our 3 clinical trials for ALLOB® and PREOB®, which are cell therapies developed using stem cells that were treated in vitro to differentiate them into bone-forming cells (osteoblasts).’

Let's talk about ALLOB®. What progress have you made in evaluating this treatment?

‘Two clinical trials are in phase 2 (1). The first is an assessment of the benefits of ALLOB® injections in cases of slow healing after a fracture of a long bone (arm or leg). The second clinical trial deals with lumbar spinal fusion, a surgical procedure that is recommended in cases of intervertebral disc pathologies. Around one third of patients still experience back pain after surgery. The goal of ALLOB® injections between the two vertebrae is to consolidate their fusion, and thus to relieve the patients' pain.’

As for PREOB®, you have already reached phase 3…

‘That's right! PREOB® works much like ALLOB®, with one significant difference: the stem cells are from the patient themself (2). The ongoing clinical trial is for osteonecrosis of the hip, an orphan disease that causes premature wear - and eventual death - of the femoral head. This results in a fracture of the hip, requiring its replacement with a prosthesis. However, osteonecrosis affects relatively young patients (age 30 to 50), and a hip prosthesis has a limited life expectancy; it will eventually have to be replaced, which is a very tricky procedure. By injecting PREOB® directly into the femoral head, we hope to delay the fracture - and therefore the hip replacement procedure - as much as possible.’

Notes:
(1) Before it is allowed on the market, any new drug must go through 3 phases of clinical trials.
(2) ALLOB® is an allogeneic drug, meaning the stem cells are from a healthy donor.