After many decades as an athlete - professionally; as part of the U.S. Olympic team pool and a high-level amateur and weekend warrior, I had my first knee surgery when my son was a year old. I hadn’t blown my knee out, requiring an ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) or knee reconstruction, but it was bothering me and affected my ability to play soccer at the high level I was enjoying. I was in my thirties and had many good years of playing ahead of me. At that time, I had a left knee medial meniscectomy and recovered fully from the small tear in my medial meniscus.

In the years that followed, though I suffered numerous injuries, large and small (including a torn medial collateral ligament in my right knee and a separated shoulder), I was able to not only play, but began coaching. This is when I began to experience the early symptoms of osteoarthritis.

My knees and ankles would sometimes ache, for what seemed like no reason, and my post-match recovery times began to get longer and longer. I chalked it up to simply getting older and participating in a young person’s sport. As I exited my forties and entered my fifties, I was still playing and coaching and being very grateful for the good health to keep being involved in the game I loved so much. However, I was using ibuprofen more and more often – something I didn’t particularly care for - and found myself searching for a more natural way to alleviate my escalating stiffness, pain and discomfort.

My surgeon had casually mentioned knee replacement as a “total cure”, but also said my OA (osteoarthritis) was only “mild to moderate”, which told me that excising my knee and replacing it with steel wasn’t on for me (yet). I even looked at Regenexx as an option, but, at $10,000 per knee, out of pocket, just couldn’t pull the trigger.

I started taking everything. Glucosamine, Chondroitin, MSM (methylsulfonylmethane), collagen and all the combinations of these that are available in a myriad of brands at GNC, Costco, The Vitamin Shoppe, CVS – you name it. They all seemed to be variations of each other and none of them worked as advertised. With all the negative aspects associated with these products, I reasoned that there had to be safer and more effective products. Thus began the search for that one magic product. But I just found more of the same.

I became increasingly interested and immersed in the dietary supplement world, and embarked on a journey of wonderfully extensive and intensive research. I found fascinating information about natural pain remedies and treatments from all over the globe – some that had been around for centuries and used by ancient cultures. A few of these ingredients actually existed in some contemporary products while others required persistence and determination to find. But none of the really powerful ingredients that I discovered were being offered in a single product. I wanted to and needed to change that.

Utilizing my science education, I created my own clean room and testing lab, bought equipment and raw materials and spent months trying different combinations of ingredients, dosages and capsule sizes. I became patient-zero in my own trials. I recorded my pain levels on a scale of 0 to 10 (0 being no pain whatsoever and 10 being excruciating pain) and created an extensive journal of which formulations seemed to be effective and which were less so.

In 2020, I finally created a breakthrough formulation that checked every box. For three consecutive weeks, my knees had 0 pain, 0 stiffness and no discomfort. I took two capsules each day - had no side effects, no rejection and no unwanted bodily changes. I was so excited! But, what if this was simply placebo effect? What if I wanted this product to work so much that I psychosomatically suppressed my symptoms and forced myself to feel better? How could I evaluate this, impartially and objectively in a neutral environment? Clearly, I needed a ‘proof-of-concept’ for my new formula in a neutral and real-world test.

During 2020, Novapath Bio, Inc. entered into an agreement with three locations and wellness doctors and sports medicine specialists in Southern California to perform patient trials for Phase I of Orthonova® Advanced Formula. The results of this trial were stunning and can be found here.

In late 2020, after visiting the company and touring their impressive plant, we contracted with an experienced and highly-regarded domestic U.S. supplement manufacturer to begin production on Orthonova® Advanced Formula in their cGMP and FDA registered facility.

Our formula is so unique and so revolutionary, that in 2022, the United States Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a utility patent (No. 11,324,246) for Orthonova® Advanced Formula! Simply put, there is no other dietary supplement on the market today, that matches the ingredient list, efficacy and power of Orthonova® Advanced Formula*. Period.

All of us at Novapath Bio have active lifestyles and have been athletes of one form or another. Our clinical advisors are doctors who have played sports at a high level and are active weekend athletes. They helped design, formulate and test Orthonova® AF! We wanted to create something that helped active people feel better and delay surgeries and/or joint replacements as much as possible.

We all take Orthonova® AF, every day, and we really feel the difference!

~Michael Weis, Patient Zero and CEO