Sparta Biomedical cofounder and CEO Surakanti: leading a new approach to a common condition. (Photo by Kate Medley)

The human knee is a marvel. It’s the hinge at the center of our gait, the evolutionary adaptation that makes humans the only fully bipedal mammals on the planet. But the knee also is a complicated and vulnerable knot of bone, muscle, and sinew. Nearly everyone knows someone with chronic knee pain, says Dushyanth Surakanti (MBA 2007), cofounder and CEO of medtech startup Sparta Biomedical. Approximately one in four adults suffer from the condition, according to recent studies.

A fairly common solution available today, knee replacement (known as arthroplasty), is far from perfect. One in three patients experience chronic pain post-surgery and one-third of patients who could benefit from the surgery are ineligible due to other health factors such as obesity and chronic illness. “It’s a problem that isn’t going away,” notes Surakanti. “No matter how much innovation has been pursued, there is still a big, unmet need.” In that, he saw a significant—and growing—business opportunity.

With risk factors leading to knee replacement on the rise—obesity, longer and more active life spans, specialization in youth sports—demand is only likely to increase in coming years. Sparta’s alternative to existing interventions and joint-replacement devices, known as Ormi, is expected to provide patients with a less invasive, less painful, and more adaptive solution.

Currently available knee-replacement implants are a multicomponent device made from a combination of durable, weight-bearing materials. A titanium or cobalt-chromium metal alloy hugs the bottom of the thigh bone, gliding against a dome-shaped, polyethylene-plastic kneecap as the leg bends and straightens. To hold these parts in place, the implant’s top and bottom pieces are cemented or press fit—a method of attracting new bone growth for holding an implant in place—to the femur and tibia.

Sparta’s implants, on the other hand, have no plastic or ceramic components and do not rely on cement or the regrowth of new bone to function. Made from a proprietary form of gel-based cartilage called Galene, and titanium, the parts—the thumbtack-shaped implant and the curved partial knee and circular kneecap replacements—replicate the characteristics of human cartilage.

Testing indicates that recovery from a Galene-based cartilage replacement is lightning fast. Sparta estimates patients should be able to return to high-impact activities like biking, jogging, and sports within a few weeks. With traditional knee replacement, it can take up to a year to reach the same level of pain-free mobility. “We’re looking to fundamentally change osteoarthritis when it comes to surgical interventions,” Surakanti explains.

Although Surakanti knew early on he wanted to pursue a career in health care, his stamina for pre-med studies was flagging by his junior year at Wabash College, in Indiana. He began to wonder if becoming a doctor was the only way to make an impact. Business school, he believed, could help inch him closer to a meaningful role.

After completing his MBA, Surakanti took a position at Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, a multinational manufacturer of affordable generic pharmaceuticals. When he emerged with a decade’s worth of investigation into issues like osteoarthritis and chronic pain under his belt, he was ready to start a health care venture of his own.

Surakanti spent almost a year poring over tech research in search of a device with the potential to transform the treatment of a common health issue. Galene, under development at Duke University, stopped him in his tracks. “I didn’t even have to turn the page,” he recalls. The chemically engineered cartilage platform had enormous potential for patients with osteoarthritis—more than 650 million people suffer from the degenerative joint disorder worldwide—and other kinds of joint pain.

Surakanti and cofounder Dimitrios Angelis launched Sparta Biomedical in 2017 in the heart of North Carolina’s Research Triangle to bring the innovation to market. In 2021, the company raised a $5 million seed round and completed another funding round this summer, which Surakanti describes as a “significantly oversubscribed convertible round of funding.” Sparta was also awarded a place in the 2023 MedTech Accelerator, an annual program that showcases about 60 promising medtech startups.

Sparta’s debut Ormi device, which replaces the portion of the knee located at the end of the femur, will be the first Galene-based component to undergo clinical trials in humans, beginning at the end of 2023—though for some osteoarthritis sufferers, that’s simply not fast enough. “We’ve had 5,000 people reach out and say, ‘I need this right away,’ ” Surakanti says.

Once Ormi showcases preliminary human data, Sparta plans to move on to development and clinical trials of several Galene-based devices made to repair other parts of the knee, as well as the shoulder, hip, elbow, and ankle. Sufferers “are dealing with a condition that is so debilitating and causes so many other comorbidities. We want them to feel like they’re living without it.”

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