While pissed off during COVID lockdowns, my friend Sammy and I did a road trip to California to buy an electric motorcycle. I needed something to maximize air flow and a sense of freedom. We stopped at Mount Bachelor in Oregon, where you can load a mountain bike on the chair lift and ride it down insane trails. The full body armor gives you a sense of invincibility.
Sammy hit the first turn too fast, locked up her brakes, flew over the bars and attacked the ground with her clavicle. Her collarbone shattered into bits. A surgeon screwed a metal plate to as many pieces as he could, but they failed to heal back together.
A nonunion bone fracture is one that has difficulty healing for at least 9 months. Often occurring in the forearm, humerus, tibia, clavicle, or femur, substantial pain, loss of function, and psychological distress are common. Traumatic injuries, congenital diseases, and infections can all lead to nonunion bone fractures. Almost two million bone grafting procedures are performed globally per year, over 500,000 of them in the U.S.
Unfortunately, after 100 years, orthopedic surgeons are still limited in how much they can do to help such patients, but Corthotec has invented a safe, quick, and inexpensive solution to finally heal nonunion fractures. They have developed a synthetic bone graft to heal nonunion bone fractures with a proprietary calcium sulfate formulation.
They are still pre-clinical, but the results are promising and with a few minor tweaks we expect Corthotec to be the gold standard for treating nonunion fractures and bringing relief to millions.
Four surgeries and five years later, Sammy is still living with something less than a full recovery.