Poll indicates major pessimism on future of Texas stem cell clinic, Celltex

CelltexWhat does the future hold for the privately-held Texas stem cell clinic, Celltex, that had given Governor Perry a stem cell transplant?

I put up a poll a few days ago asking this question and the results have been striking.

By way of background, it’s been a complicated few weeks for Celltex.

Almost a month ago, I first broke the news that the FDA had audited Celltex.

Based on that news, Dr. Leigh Turner of Univ. of Minnesota and the Houston Chronicle filed Freedom of Information requests with the FDA to see the audit report, which we all put up last week. My initial take on the audit can be found here. The report identified 79 individual items of concern. Later last week Celltex put out a press release saying basically everything’s fine and their problems with the FDA were due to their Texas lab being staffed by non-English speaking Koreans. I also interpreted Governor Perry’s quote in reaction to Celltex’s situation to mean he was distancing himself from the company. We also learned that Celltex had just settled a lawsuit against it filed by an ex-nurse.

The poll results (see above) reflect a gloomy view of the future of Celltex. Fully two-thirds of respondents predict that Celltex will either shut down entirely or receive an FDA warning letter.

Interesting, no one voted “so-so” taking the middle ground.

What does the future actually hold for Celltex? We’ll find out very soon I think.