Why HYALEX® Cartilage?

Being forced onto the sidelines is hard.

Whether it be taking time off from your active lifestyle, being forced to stay home from work or active duty, or being unable to live pain free, our team ranging from occasional weekend warriors to orthopaedic surgeons treating patients with knee pain, knows about the suffering cartilage injury and osteoarthritis can cause.

People with cartilage injury and osteoarthritis face limited treatment options that can repair their cartilage injury and allow them to quickly resume active lifestyles. HYALEX® Cartilage is designed to allow a wide range of patients to quickly return to activities. Backed by published data, HYALEX® Cartilage has demonstrated successful long-term fixation and preservation of the opposing cartilage surface in a rabbit knee model1. Our team at Hyalex Orthopaedics is motivated to bring HYALEX® Cartilage to patients to help all types of people Be Active, Stay Active™.

HYALEX® Cartilage and the materials platform are protected by numerous US and global patents.

Elbow cartilage lesions are relatively rare, but present most frequently among adolescents and athletes participating in elbow-joint stressing sports, such as baseball. HYALEX® Cartilage may be able to help.
Shoulder cartilage lesions or joint replacements affect ~60,000 people per year in the US. HYALEX® Cartilage may be able to help.
Thumb or CMC joint replacements affect ~80,000 people per year in the US. HYALEX® Cartilage may be able to help.
Every year more than 300,000 patients in the US receive a toe or MTP joint replacement, many with unsuccessful results. HYALEX® Cartilage may be able to help.
Knee pain affects >50% of all adults around the world. Every year close to 1M patients receive a partial or total knee replacement. HYALEX® Cartilage may be able to help prolong the time before a total knee replacement.
Hip joint replacement or resurfacing is a common procedure, with more than 575,000 surgeries performed in the US alone every year, with the fastest growing segment in the <65 year-old population. Existing solutions require replacing the entire hip joint, but HYALEX® Cartilage may be able to help.

Native Cartilage Structure

HYALEX® Cartilage Structure

HYALEX® Cartilage is the first orthopaedic implant designed to mimic the properties of native cartilage.

Originally invented at Stanford University and designed from the ground-up by a team of passionate scientists and engineers, HYALEX® Cartilage is a proprietary material comprised of two types of polymers: one to provide strength and one to provide lubricity (slipperiness). We combine these polymers in a gradient structure to enable attachment to a variety of materials on one side while maintaining strength and slipperiness on the cartilage-facing other side. Read more about the unique biomimetic material properties of HYALEX® Cartilage in our abstract published in the 2020 Materials Research Society, abstract F.SM02.05.01 here.

Unlike other implant materials, HYALEX® Cartilage is the only synthetic implant system demonstrated to preserve the cartilage counter-face in vivo.

Published at Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS) 2020: Available online here.