Osteoarthritis and chronic low back pain affect over 350 million people worldwide and are the leading causes for loss of quality of life (WHO).

Chronic low back pain (CLBP) and pain caused by osteoarthritis (OA) result in patient suffering and a huge economic burden due to massive productivity losses, particularly in western societies. Currently, no effective pain management is available for these orthopaedic diseases. Oral pain killers are seldomly effective as they hardly reach the affected tissues. Local corticosteroid injections are used for pain management in the joint, but pain relief is short and repeated injection is contraindicated. In OA, prosthesis surgery is the last resort. For chronic back pain no effective treatment is available, hence these patients currently represent the majority of opiate addicts.