The company plans to open a new 90,000 square foot facility this summer. It was a facility that VIVEX’s employees helped design in order to make it as efficient as possible.
Back injuries are no joke. Even minor muscle strains can inhibit activities for some time. More serious injuries create greater challenges and often require more stringent treatments, which is where companies like VIVEX Biologics play a significant role.
At the end of April, VIVEX published clinical data assessing VIA Disc as a potential treatment for symptomatic degenerative disc disease. VIVEX’s VIA Disc is a non-surgical, injectable treatment option for patients suffering from chronic lower back pain resulting from DDD. Degenerative disc disease is the most common cause of chronic lower back pain in adults, which is the leading cause of disability across the globe, with a cost of about $87.6 billion. There are few treatment options for DDD, with most patients having to use opioids to manage the pain or surgery for patients who cannot manage their disease with medication.
To address this gap in the continuum of care, VIVEX developed VIA Disc to offer patients a novel, non-surgical intervention for treating one to two levels of symptomatic DDD. In the paper, “VAST Clinical Trial: Safely Supplementing Tissue Lost to Degenerative Disc Disease,” which was published in The International Journal of Spine Surgery, trial data showed that VIA Disc improved pain and function in patients with DDD by greater than 70%, as measured by visual analog scale (VAS) and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI). Additionally, the data from the study showed that the results were durable one year following the treatment.
Peter Wehrly, chief executive officer of VIVEX, said the results are encouraging and validate the therapeutic potential of VID Disc in patients who are in critical need of treatment. The positive data from the study is exciting, particularly given the high, unmet need in this space, Wehrly told BioSpace in an interview. Not only is degenerative disc disease an area of unmet need, the number of patients is growing, Wehrly said. Currently, there are approximately 800,000 cases of DDD, but that continues to increase by about 20,000 each year, Wehrly said.
The study data will lead to the launch of an incremental trial that will follow patients over the course of three years. Wehrly said the data, which has so far looked promising, could prove to be enormously helpful to patients who are dealing with back pain “day in and day out.” Patients who have been treated with VIA Disc notice a difference almost immediately, he added.
“Hopefully this helps patients for at least two years,” he said, adding that he will be ecstatic should the studies support that.
Eventually, VIVEX will likely test potential re-administration of VIA Disc in patients who did benefit from an initial treatment. At this point though, Wehrly said the company has yet to delve into that possibility. He stressed that the company will take things one step at a time with VIA Disc as VIVEX has a goal to become “the company” in this space.
In order to support that goal, VIVEX has been planning an expansion of its footprint in Florida. The company plans to open a new 90,000 square foot facility this summer. It was a facility that VIVEX’s employees helped design in order to make it as efficient as possible, Wehrly told BioSpace.
