The promising utility back joined the Scarlets after he was released by the Ospreys at the end of the season following cruciate ligament reconstruction.
Owen missed the whole of the 2011-2012 season and continues to battle back from the career-threatening injury.
And Scarlets head of strength and conditioning Brad Harrington admits getting Owen back on the pitch will be a major challenge.
“We don’t want to put a return to play time on him yet because he is at an early stage in his rehab,” said Harrington.
“With the injury he has had, he is a bit of a project — quite a challenge for our strength, conditioning and medical staff.
“Our coaches have identified him as a player with a lot of talent and they want to see if we can help him back to playing rugby.”
Owen, who played 50 games during his time at the Liberty Stadium, is still unable to run but Harrington has been pleased with his progress since making the move.
“It is about strengthening at the moment. He can’t run, so he is doing things like pool sessions and bike, with lower-body rehab and upper-body strength.
“As he progresses through that, the next stage will be for him to run, once he is running, the next stage will be to progress to rugby. There are probably another three or four steps for him to go through.
“All you can say is every day he has been hitting little targets and he has been achieving them and moving forward, which is positive.”
Meanwhile Morgan Stoddart, another of the Scarlets’ long-term casualties, remains on course for his comeback.
The fullback-cum-wing suffered a horrific double leg fracture in the World Cup warm-up clash with England at Twickenham in August.
The Scarlets are easing Stoddart into training and are hopeful he will be back on the field in the opening weeks of the season.
“Morgan has just been reintroduced to rugby skills. He’s gone through his period of pure rehab, he’s been reintroduced to running and this is the next step,” added Harrington.
“When he comes back depends on the key performance indicators we’ve set him.
“We want to get him back during the first block of the season in September or October.”
Wales centre Jon Davies is expected to be available for the beginning of the season following his operation on a sportsman’s hernia.
Rhys Priestland does not require surgery on the knee injury he battled throughout last season.
“Rhys did have issues with his knee and shoulders last year,” added the Australian.
“Rhys was struggling when he came back from the Six Nations to be honest, but pushed through it and worked hard on his rehab to play with these issues.
“Since he has come back from Australia he has already started on his rehab.
“The amount of rugby he has been playing and the issues with his knee mean he has lost a bit of lower body strength, which affected his game in terms of his acceleration and speed.
“That is definitely something we are looking to rectify and will be a big work-on for him in pre-season.”
