Intellicell Biosciences Inc (fka SVFC)

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CRAZY DR JAMES ANDREWS SPORTS ILLUSTRATED ARTICLE REGARDING SVFC... RELATES TO knees and osteoarthritIS)
mmqb.si.com/2014/07/30/stem-cell-treatment-nfl-sports-medicine/



http://mmqb.si.com/2014/07/30/stem-cell-treatment-nfl-sports-medicine/


AS SAID IN ARTICLE........
"Here’s one example: Steven Victor, a dermatologist to celebrities, became involved with stem cells while seeking a use for discarded fat tissue from cosmetic procedures. He traveled to Greece for instruction, patented a technology in the U.S. that uses sound waves to isolate stem cells from the fat, and started the Park Avenue-based IntelliCell BioSciences. He’s treated current and former NFL players—Merril Hoge is a spokesperson—and, recently a Dubai businessman called about using the procedure to heal his high-priced thoroughbred racing camels.

The cost of one stem-cell treatment starts at about $5,000 in the U.S., and between $15,000 and $25,000 overseas. Athletes pining for a fix to the ailments threatening their careers are willing to pay that price, even if it’s out of pocket—as was the case for the linebacker who didn’t want his name used. Multiple surgeries left his knees chronically swollen and aching, so he turned to a treatment recommended by his orthopedic therapist and a handful of teammates.

“Body parts in a cryogenically frozen cooler,” he says. That’s not entirely accurate, but the treatment he received, from a Colorado-based biologics company, illustrates the wide spectrum of stem-cell therapies NFL players are using. The product in the vial didn’t contain the player’s own freshly harvested stem cells, but rather liquefied placenta tissue with stem cells and growth factors, donated by a new mom after childbirth and frozen at minus-80 degrees Celsius. (His orthopedic therapist says he has sent 150 NFL players to get this treatment in the past year and a half).

The linebacker didn’t tell his team mainly because he didn’t want to jeopardize his roster spot by arousing concern about the health of his knees. But he’s not alone in wanting to keep his stem-cell use private. Manning has never talked publicly about his reported trip to Europe for stem-cell treatment, and a team spokesman turned down a request for this article.

“It does kind of sound like you’re talking about illegal gambling or a pharmaceutical drug trade or something,” the player says. “You hear about labs being set up in Bermuda to avoid the laws here, and all these small companies claiming to have the best product. Guys are just looking for who is at the tip of the sword, and you don’t want everybody to know your secrets.”

* * *

Andrews, a pioneer in sports medicine, is cautiously optimistic about the prospects for biologics such as stem cells. (Al Tielemans/Sports Illustrated)
Andrews, a pioneer in sports medicine, and his team are looking toward clinical trials on retired players to better gauge stem cells’ real effects. (Al Tielemans/Sports Illustrated)
Chris Johnson was ready to return to the football field when the Jets opened training camp in Cortland, N.Y., last week. He aced his conditioning test—“He was flying,” coach Rex Ryan told reporters—but the team will ease its prized free agent into a full workload. The true test will be how Johnson’s knee holds up weeks, months and years down the road.

Andrews speaks carefully about the potential of stem-cell treatments. He’s hyper-aware of the danger of sensationalizing among his clientele of elite athletes, particularly since many questions remain—not the least of which is how well the treatments actually work. But the early returns have motivated him, as has seeing his top patients go abroad for therapy. “They don’t really know what they are getting,” he says. “Are they getting illegal stuff? We don’t have any control over it, so it’s something we needed to bring back and do in a controlled environment here.”

His team of doctors is working on expanding and optimizing their stem-cell treatment options. Adam Anz, an orthopedic surgeon at the Andrews Institute, has traveled to Malaysia four times to learn from Khay Yong Saw, a surgeon who has had success repairing cartilage defects with the aid of stem cells harvested from the bloodstream. Josh Hackel, the primary care sports medicine physician who treats many of Andrews’ patients with stem cells from their bone marrow, has visited IntelliCell to learn more about its fat-derived stem cell technology. When Andrews’ biologics lab opens, clinical trials could begin on some of these new techniques with permission from the FDA—which Anz says he is close to getting for the cartilage innovation.

Andrews’ team is also actively recruiting retired NFL players for a study on the effectiveness of treating arthritis of the knee with stem cells from the bone marrow or with PRP. A longstanding challenge of proving how well stem-cell treatments work in treating athletes’ injuries is that no athlete with his career on the line wants to risk being randomized into receiving a placebo treatment. Retired players, who would receive the treatment at no cost to them, are the next-best patient population.

The end game? A toolbox of proven biologics treatments, each of which are specific to a certain kind of injury based on the source of stem cells, the amount, when they are administered, etc. “We’ve gotten really good at carpentry,” Anz says, referring to advances in arthroscopic surgery. “The thing we haven’t really been working on is the biologics.”

Here’s why the arthroscope analogy is a good one: That instrument, introduced to the U.S. in the 1960s, changed the outcomes and prognoses for a generation of athletes by making surgeries less traumatic and more precise. But recovery times and outcomes have still depended on the body’s own ability to heal itself. Once cartilage is damaged, for instance, it hasn’t been able to self-repair. And while athletes are restoring their muscles faster than ever following ACL surgery, their return to the game is still limited by how fast the new ligament graft heals and matures inside the knee.

“Instead of taking a year, a year and a half in order to get well, maybe we can cut that down in half,” Andrews says. “We have an old saying: ‘You can’t bargain with Mother Nature.’ The biologics, the stem-cell therapy, is the revelation that may change that.” "