Enhancing Bone Repair With Novel Sugar Compound

SMC Biotechnology, Inc., a California-based regenerative medicine company, has announced that data published in the online journal, Biomaterials, suggests that its proprietary sugar compound, SMC-103 greatly enhances bone repair. Researchers found that affinity-selected heparan sulfate (HS) improved bone repair by increasing the bioavailability, bioactivity and half-life of the pro-healing compound, bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2). SMC-103 is a glycosaminoglycan, or GAG, a naturally occurring substance composed of chains of paired sugar units.

“This is the first time that an affinity-isolated sugar has been used to aid the body’s natural repair processes, ” said Simon Cool, Ph.D., co-founder of SMC Biotechnology and lead investigator, in the July 10, 2013 news release.

The study was conducted by researchers at the Glycotherapeutics Group, Institute of Medical Biology at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore. To develop a specific GAG for bone repair, Dr. Cool and Victor Nurcombe, Ph.D., co-founder of SMC Biotechnology, and fellow researchers formulated a peptide-based affinity platform to isolate a unique BMP-2 binding HS variant from commercially available preparations of HS to ensure the translation into the clinic would be cost-effective. When the HS variant was delivered into critical-sized bone defects in preclinical studies, it enhanced bone healing at levels comparable to BMP-2 therapy alone. The study showed that BMP-2 binds to HS with a greater affinity than other sulfated GAGs.

“The finding that this specific heparan sulfate compound alone is enough to promote tissue regeneration is exciting, ” said Professor Birgit Lane, (Ph.D.), executive director, Institute of Medical Biology, A*STAR. “This discovery has great potential to not only improve tissue repair by enhancing the body’s own healing mechanism, but may also help eliminate the need for overuse of exogenous growth factors like BMP-2, which can lead to unwanted side effects.”

Asked about their challenges thus far, Dr. Cool told OTW, “The greatest challenge we faced along the way was to create a robust platform that could separate GAG variants based on their ability to promote the activity of discrete pro-healing factors found in injured tissue. We also needed to ensure this platform was readily scalable and compliant with regulatory practices to allow for future clinical use. The success of our preclinical bone healing GAG variant SMC-103 validates this platform technology and highlights the potential utility of this novel approach to wound healing.”

As for clinical trials, Dr. Cool told OTW, “SMC Bio is engaged with the FDA and is currently preparing for clinical trials in long bone healing that are scheduled to commence in Q4 2014.”