There’s a growing stream of stem cell good news of late.
Stem cell biotech, TiGenix, reported encouraging Phase 3 allogeneic results on stem cells. A big milestone. I can’t wait to see the actual data. Its product, Cx601, has so far been safe and effective for perianal fistulas in Crohn’s disease. See more from Alexey on this.
CIRM has funded the largest public stem cell bank in the world. Want to make a withdrawal?
Asterias reported some great news. It’s AST OPC-1 product showed some signs of encouraging efficacy in the first three patients treated. They are hoping to expand the trial.
In about two weeks on September 16th, the first winner of the new Ogawa-Yamanaka Stem Cell Prize will be announced at Gladstone Institutes. This should be a very exciting event honoring a top stem cell translational innovator in the area of cellular reprogramming, who will also received a cash prize of $150,000. According to the organizers, “The Prize was established through a generous gift from Hiro Ogawa to honor the memory of Betty Ogawa, who passed away in May 2014. It continues the philanthropic legacy she shared with her husband of 46 years.” The prize also recognizes Shinya Yamanaka too of course.
Any guesses on who will win? Let us know in the comments. Any kind of recognition of achievement and innovation in stem cells is wonderful.
On that note, I’m also starting to think about candidates for my own stem cell prize, the annual Stem Cell Person of the Year Award. It’s not to the same scale with a $2,000 prize, but I fund it out of my own pocket. The focus is different too. My award goes to the person who has had the single strongest, most innovative impact in the stem cell world for a given year and has taken risks either scientifically or in the area of advocacy. I’m looking for outside-the-box thinkers and doers.
Past winners have included super patient advocate Roman Reed, scientist and politician Elena Cattaneo (who went on to win the ISSCR Public Service Award), and this past year, pioneering stem cell translational scientist Masayo Takahashi. Dr. Takahashi might be a good bet to win the Ogawa-Yamanaka Prize this year.
Who should be nominated this year for the 2015 Stem Cell Person of the Year Award?
It’s not too soon to let me know your thoughts even though nominations don’t officially open quite yet. Last year we had more than two-dozen amazing nominees. The process includes an Internet vote to choose finalists and then I pick the winner from those, sometimes consulting privately with global stem cell scholars.
Hi Paul,
About TiGenix’s Cx601 results — which I believe is the very first allogeneic MSC treatment to reach its primary endpoint on the ITT population in a double-blind RCT — management has confirmed that detailed data will be provided at ECCO 2016 (March 16-19).
The company also reached an agreement with the FDA to start a pivotal Phase 3 trial in the U.S. next year with similar endpoints.
@Logribel,
Thanks for the valuable info. This all seems to be very good news on this cutting edge clinical work.
Paul
@Ross, You raise a good point. I will revise it. Paul
I don’t want to rain on your parade, but to be accurate the great news for TiGenix is in respect of complex perianal fistulas in Crohn’s disease patients, not in respect of Crohn’s disease per se. Big difference.