Pharmaprojects R&D Pipeline News Feed
Cord stem-cell therapy reaches the end of its tether
23th Feb 2007
The cell therapeutics-based biotech company ViaCell has announced the discontinuation of its lead product, an umbilical cord blood stem cell transplant therapy coded CB-001. The cells had been expanded using ViaCell's proprietary selective amplification technology and incorporated 2 Amgen growth factors.
In the Phase I trial in patients with advanced haematological cancers, CB-001 was well tolerated, and clinical measures of engraftment were comparable to standard transplants using blood from two umbilical cords. However, chimerism (the presence of donor cells), an indication of potential efficacy, was not detected by day 21-28. As a consequence, and in line with the recent paradigm shift in transplantation medicine to two-cord transplants, the project was terminated.
Marc D. Beer, President and CEO of ViaCell remained confident in strengthening the company's focus in this therapy stating that as a leader in cord blood research "..we remain committed to continuing to apply innovation to make umbilical cord blood stem cells more valuable including in the area of haematopoiesis".
ViaCell still has stem cell products in development for muscular dystrophy, Type I diabetes and neutropaenia; however, Osiris Therapeutics remains at the leading front in utilising the stem cell approach for transplant rejection and it will not be surprising if more companies join the race.
