Intra-articular sprifermin therapy reduces total knee replacements: accumulated evidence from translational and clinical data

Abstract

Purpose: Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative disease with high prevalence, creating an unmet medical need for drugs to protect and regenerate cartilage. Sprifermin, a truncated form of fibroblast growth factor 18 (rhFGF18), is being investigated as a potential disease-modifying OA drug (DMOAD). Sprifermin has been shown to increase cartilage volume in the knees of OA patients. Studies published about the mode of action clearly demonstrate anabolic effects. Accumulated analysis of data available from preclinical experiments and clinical data was performed to investigate the effects of sprifermin on late stage OA tissues as well as the rate of total knee replacements (TKR) in late stage OA patients.