About Us

Cartilage does not heal

Cartilage healing has been an intractable problem for millennia. Today, osteoarthritis, caused by cartilage damage, afflicts over 30 million people in the United States alone. Each patient will spend over $200,000 to treat this condition over his or her lifetime. Ultimately, current therapies fail to heal cartilage damage. Patients wait an average of 13 years to receive an end-stage treatment: an invasive and traumatic total joint replacement.

Who we are

We are a company that creates cartilage regeneration products to eliminate the need for further treatments and improve patient quality of life. Using technologies developed at the University of California, Irvine, our team is creating a series of products to heal defects of all sizes in cartilage of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) complex and knee.

Cartilage Inc. technologies

Hyaleon® is a 100% biological, mechanically robust cartilage implant capable of healing both large and small cartilage defects without the limitations of current treatments.

Melt-and-meld® is process that repairs the early signs of cartilage injury and enhances cartilage integration.

Chondrofluid® is a viscous, injectable implant that repairs the early signs of cartilage injury and enhances cartilage integration.

Please note that Hyaleon®, Melt-and-meld®, and Chondrofluid® are not yet FDA-approved and therefore are currently limited by United States Law to animal and in vitro research use only. Hyaleon®, Melt-and-meld®, and Chondrofluid® should not be used in humans.

Research Funding Sources

National Institutes of Health

California Institute of Regenerative Medicine

National Institutes of Health

STTR Phase I: Chondrofluid® for arthroscopic knee cartilage repair

SBIR Phase I: Evaluation of Hyaleon® pre-clinical safety and efficacy for healing large cartilage defects in the knee

National Science Foundation

California Institute of Regenerative Medicine

National Institutes of Health

SBIR Phase I: Development of a biological adhesive for the fixation and integration of cartilage implants

California Institute of Regenerative Medicine

CLIN1: Treatment of the TMJ disc complex