South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said today that it has approved the country’s first gene therapy for osteoarthritis, the lead product candidate of a Maryland-based regenerative medicine company.

Invossa-K Inj. was developed by Maryland-based TissueGene, whose Korean licensee, Kolon Life Sciences, won approval for the injectable treatment. According to the company, Invossa is a first-in-class cell-mediated gene therapy designed to treat moderate (Kellgren and Lawrence grade 3) knee osteoarthritis through regeneration of cartilage.

Invossa uses allogeneic human cartilage cells