Advertise With UsAdvertise on our extensive network of industry websites and newsletters.
Get the PBR newsletterSign up to our free email to get all the latest PBR
news.StemCells has announced that the first patient to receive a transplant of HuCNS-SC cells in the Phase I clinical trial has completed the trial.
Subscribe to our email newsletter
The patient, who was transplanted in November 2006, has finished the 12-month period of immunosuppression and follow-up, and undergone the last of the tests and observations required by the trial protocol. As planned, the patient has subsequently been enrolled in a separate long-term follow-up study, designed to monitor the patients over a four-year period.
The trial is designed to evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of HuCNS-SC (purified human neural stem cells) product candidate as a treatment for infantile and late infantile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis (NCL), a fatal neurodegenerative disease also known as Batten disease. To date, five patients out of a planned total of six have been transplanted with HuCNS-SC cells. The company anticipates that the sixth patient will be transplanted in January 2008.
Stephen Huhn, vice president and head of the neural program of StemCells, said: “We consider the completion of the trial by the first patient to be a major milestone.”