Q Therapeutics’ and Invitrogen’s Symbiotic Relationship

Q Therapeutics, a cell therapy company focusing on neural applications, recently announced a $15M series B financing that included funding from multiple venture capital (VC) groups as well as biotech tools provider Invitrogen. Q’s lead product, Q-Cells™, is an allogeneic product intended to restore function to damaged neurons by providing trophic (e.g. cytokines, growth [...]

The Developing Embyronic Stem Cell Clinical Landscape

ES cell biopsy from blastocyst.

Cytori Announces Progress in Cardiac Regeneration Clinical Studies

Cytori Therapeutics announced that they have enrolled their first two patients in an acute myocardial infarction clinical trial using adipose-derived cells prepared using their Celution™ device. The Celution™ device is an automated, tissue processing unit that isolates cells from adipose tissue derived via liposuction.

Osiris Scores $225M DoD Contract for Acute Radiation Syndrome Treatment with Prochymal Adult Stem Cell Product

Osiris Therapeutics announced that they won a DoD contract worth up to $224.7 million for developing their adult mesenchymal stem cell (MSC)-based therapeutic for treating acute radiation exposure. The contract allows for reimbursement of up to $24.7 million for continued development of their Prochymal product, and then, once the product is FDA approved for [...]

Celgene Strengthens Adult Stem Cell Patent Estate

I have recently signed up for the StemCellPatents.com weekly newsletter, and it is great to keep updated on all the patents that get issued in regenerative medicine. In the most recent newletter, they reported on two patents that issued last week that strengthen Celgene’s patent estate in adult stem cells. Celgene got into the stem [...]

Osiris Releases 1 Year Data from Chrondrogen Trial

Osiris Therapeutics last week announced positive data that came out of their Phase I/II double blinded Chondrogen trial. They demonstrated statistically significant improvements in joint pain in patients with osteoarthritis, however this seems to be an about face compared to when they announced their “disappointing” (the CEO’s words) interim 6 [...]

Athersys’ adult allogeneic stem cell IND gets OK from FDA

On November 15, 2007, Athersys announced in a press release that they had received a letter from the FDA giving the green light to start a Phase I safety study of MultiStem, their adult, allogeneic stem cell product. Athersys will start an open label, dose escalation trial to test their cells after bone marrow transplantation.
This [...]