Muddier stem cell waters: Stemedica teams up with UCSD doc?

Stemedica announced it is teaming up with UC San Diego (UCSD) to do stem cell research.

This fits with an increasing trend in the stem cell arena is the teaming up of clinical partners with very different backgrounds and priorities. For instance, academic institutions are more often working together with for-profit stem cell clinics.

Another branch of this larger trend is the observation that some publicly traded stem cell biotechs such as Bioheart are increasingly turning to non-traditional means of raising cash such as through dubious stem cell training for doctors or other unexpected ventures.

It seems that in the past things were clearer in terms of who is compliant and who isn’t, who is following the spirit of FDA regs and who isn’t, and so forth.

The waters of the stem cell world are getting far muddier today as I predicted in my top 20 predictions for stem cells in 2015.

It’s a somewhat radioactive topic.

Why?

On the one hand such team efforts between academic and industry could be beneficial by speeding translation to patients, which is what the field needs. Cheers for that.

However, on the other hand for-profit stem cell clinics and academics do not always see eye to eye on how to do things, how to report findings, bioethics, patient consent, stem cell tourism, the proper way to handle public relations, and such.

Increasingly the commercialization of stem cells is making for strange bedfellows.

A good recent example is the work just announced that Stemedica indicates links it with UC San Diego (UCSD) for a stem cell trial for Alzheimer’s Disease:

“The study is sponsored by Stemedica International, S.A. and will start at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) under Principle Investigator Douglas Galasko, M.D. and expand to other sites.”

You may recall Stemedica from the media frenzy over the last half a year on their role in the treatment of hockey legend Gordie Howe for stroke. In fact, Howe reportedly just got a second treatment from Stemedica and its partner Novastem in Mexico.

I found some aspects of the whole Howe-Stemedica story to be of great concern. For example, there is some question over whether the free treatment of Howe has led to stem cell tourism via more patients traveling to Mexico for non-FDA approved interventions. Football great Bart Starr may also have recently gotten such a treatment via Stemedica as well.

Of this new Alzheimer’s trial, Stemedica says in a PR:

“This study was approved based on the excellent safety profile of Stemedica’s cGMP-manufactured, hypoxically-grown stem cells and on solid pre-clinical data obtained by Stemedica International in cooperation with the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne of Switzerland and with a grant from the Swiss government,” said Lev Verkh, Ph.D. Stemedica’s Chief Regulatory & Clinical Development Officer. He continued “We are very proud of Stemedica’s clinical program under U.S. INDs for several indications including ischemic stroke, acute myocardial infarction, chronic heart failure, cutaneous photoaging and Alzheimer’s disease. At the study’s conclusion we will understand if our approach is efficacious versus placebo in subjects with Alzheimer’s-related dementia, as evidenced by neurologic, functional, and psychiatric endpoints.”

Now in principle some definite good could come from Stemedica working with academics and notably they have an FDA-approved IND for this, which is great. At the same time there may well be different priorities at work. I guess we’ll have to wait and see how it goes.

Other stem cell clinics raise more concerns and claim university affiliations too. For example, earlier this year we saw an odd stem cell clinic with their NIH-like name (National Institutes of Regenerative Medicine; NIRM) turn out to be affiliated with Cell Surgical Network, the largest chain of stem cell clinics in the US, which sells non-FDA approved “therapies”. NIRM had claimed a UCSD affiliation as well, but I no longer see that apparent on their website today.

Notably, Stemedica is different in some key ways from the dubious stem cell clinics we often talk about. They have a growing number of FDA-approved INDs and by all accounts I’ve heard through the grapevine that the stem cells that Stemedica produces are cGMP quality. Still their actions have raised concerns on some levels and the promotion of stem cell tourism to Mexico is a worry.

Overall, as the stem cell waters continue to muddy and with essentially zero apparent regulatory action by the FDA’s CBER specifically on stem cell clinics more broadly in the last couple years, I predict it will be increasingly difficult to know what is going on with any particular stem cell offering. Instead of getting clearer, things are getting grayer.