Strata Biologics

Precision biologics for joint pain.

What is a healthy joint actually worth? Move the slider, and watch the cost of inflammation recede.

Illustration of a knee joint, its inflammation responding to the slider A refined lateral line-art study of a human knee in profile — the femur descending from above, the tibia and fibula below, and the patella at the front. A warm glow and faint radiating heat rings sit in the synovial joint space to indicate inflammation; their intensity decreases as the slider grants more healthy joint-years, so the joint appears nearly calm at the maximum. Femur Patella Synovial joint space Tibia Fibula
Fig. 1 The joint — lateral view.
Healthy joint-years restored

What an extra 10 years of healthy joints is worth to you

$338,000

Includes a one-time ~$30,000 avoided joint replacement.

And across everyone living with the disease

$10.30 trillion

How this is calculated

Each extra healthy joint-year is valued from published components — quality of life, ongoing healthcare, and (for working-age years) productivity — plus a one-time avoided joint replacement.

  • Quality of life $15,000 / yr

    0.15 QALY per year regained × $100,000 per QALY.

    Sources: ICER 2023 Value Assessment Framework ($/QALY); knee-OA utility decrement from Konopka et al., JBJS Open Access 2018 (n = 12,782), and GBD 2021.

  • Healthcare avoided $4,800 / yr + ~$30,000 once

    Ongoing osteoarthritis care of about $4,800/yr, plus a one-time delayed or avoided joint replacement (~$30,000 per knee; roughly 1 in 3 knee-OA patients eventually need one, often in both knees → ~$60,000, with revisions near $47,000).

    Ongoing care: DiBonaventura et al., 2011 (inflation-adjusted). Replacement cost: Maradit Kremers et al. (Mayo); lifetime risk: Leyland et al., 2019; Losina et al., 2015.

  • Productivity (working age only) $11,000 / yr

    Avoided lost work, roughly 90% of it from reduced on-the-job productivity.

    DiBonaventura et al., 2011.

Societal value multiplies the annual per-person figure by the number of people living with the disease: 14M U.S. symptomatic knee OA (Deshpande et al., 2016); 32.5M U.S. osteoarthritis (CDC); 374.7M knee OA worldwide (GBD 2021, The Lancet Rheumatology).

Sanity checks: ~800,000 U.S. knee replacements/yr × ~$30,000 ≈ $24 billion/yr, and total U.S. osteoarthritis healthcare ≈ $27 billion/yr (Losina et al., 2015), are consistent with these inputs — while the CDC puts the full national arthritis burden (medical care plus lost wages) at $137–304 billion/year.

An illustrative estimate for discussion, drawn from published health-economics literature; not medical or financial advice.

Contact

Strata Biologics is building toward that calmer joint — durable, targeted relief for inflammatory joint disease.

hello@stratabiologics.com

Open to clinical and scientific collaboration.