Cashman

Although the company has only been around for five years, Sanuwave (Alpharetta, GA) has big plans for healing bone fractures. Its Pace technology platform uses high-energy acoustic pressure waves to trigger the healing process internally. Sanuwave’s CEO, Chris Cashman, sees a $5 billion U.S. market opportunity for the technology in orthopaedics, $2 billion of which would come from spinal fusion.

The key to the technology is the pressure waves, which cause major stimulation at the cellular level. “The cells begin to signal, and then you get a significant up-regulation of various growth factors, proteins, and in the case of bone, bone morphogenetic proteins,” says Cashman. “The body understands what it needs to do, it just needs to be restarted. That’s what we attempt to do with Pace.”

With more than six million fractures occurring each year in the United States, Cashman anticipates a $1 billion+ base for using Pace to treat bone fractures. Sanuwave’s orthoPace product received the CE mark in July. The product isn’t FDA approved, but Cashman hopes to begin discussions with the agency this year about how to bring orthoPace to the U.S. market given it’s potential.

Sanuwave's OrthoPace received CE mark in July 2010.

In addition to spinal fusion, the company is also interested in using Pace to address pain management for arthritis of the knee. An equine study showed that after Pace treatment, the proteins that built up in the synolvial fluid were reduced and the pain went away.

The ultimate result of using Pace is new capillary formation within 24 hours. “We want to get involved early with Pace [technology] to create the new vascularization into the body, which will support the regeneration of bone,” says Cashman, who refers to Sanuwave as a regenerative medicine company, because it is helping the body to heal. While stem cell companies harvest stem cells and redeliver them, Sanuwave has shown that it can recruit progenerative type cells.