Shares of BioSpecifics closed Monday at $27.61, up from $1 as recently as late 2006.

Some people treated with Xiaflex in clinical trials for the Dupuytren’s hand condition said it had made a big difference in their lives, and had allowed them to avoid painful surgery.

Image For years Karen Mercaldo could not play her viola, until she was given Xiaflex, a drug that straightens clenched fingers. Credit... Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

“When I looked down and saw my finger straightened out, I cried,” said Kenneth Nelson, 65, of Indianapolis. “It was to me just like a miracle.”

Xiaflex is an enzyme produced by a gangrene-causing bacterium, Clostridium histolyticum, which uses it to eat away the tissues of its victims. The enzyme, called collagenase, breaks down collagen, a major component of the body’s connective tissue that is found in skin, tendons, cartilage and other organs.

But collagenase by itself does not cause gangrene. And there are times doctors need to break down collagen, such as when an excess builds up in the hand or penis, causing Dupuytren’s and Peyronie’s. The ailments are named for French surgeons who described the conditions in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The enzyme was first extracted from the bacteria around 1950 by Ines Mandl, a young biochemist at Columbia University. Edwin H. Wegman, a Long Island entrepreneur, learned about Dr. Mandl’s work and set up a company called Advance Biofactures, which later became BioSpecifics, to turn collagenase into a drug.

In 1965, the company won approval of an ointment containing collagenase for use in removing dead tissue from skin ulcers and burns. The ointment, sold by licensees under the name Santyl, was a modest success, but the company never truly prospered.

So in the 1970s the company began developing what it thought would be a bigger money-maker, an injectable collagenase. It tested that drug for numerous uses, including herniated disks. Finally, in the early 1990s, two professors of orthopedics at the nearby State University of New York at Stony Brook suggested using the drug for Dupuytren’s.