I’ve been concerned about a stem cell group called MD Stem Cells for many years. Now it comes under more scrutiny from a new must-read piece by Donna Young over at S&P Global. Young’s article reports a puzzling, purported right-to-try (RTT) program that MD Stem Cells appears to working on with Richard Garr. Note that …
A new right-to-try company called Beacon of Hope is stirring some intense discussion. State and federal right-to-try laws could potentially change the fabric of how many investigational studies are conducted. That may happen through firms like Beacon of Hope. However, we don’t know much about the firm. I’m hoping to help change that. Today’s post …
Richard Garr Q&A on his new Right-To-Try firm Beacon of Hope Read More »
Patient advocate Ted Harada is the recipient of this year’s Stem Cell Person of the Year Award. Congrats also to the runner-up, HD patient advocate Judy Roberson. The three of us together are pictured at left. You can read about the 20 nominees here and see the vote results that picked the 10 finalists here. …
Stem Cell Person of the Year 2016: Patient Advocate Ted Harada Read More »
It takes a great deal of courage to participate in a clinical trial, patients who make that choice are heroes in my book and one such hero with stem cells was Ted Harada who had ALS. Sadly, Ted passed away from a brain tumor called glioblastoma last month. When enrolling in a trial, you just never …
Tribute to Ted Harada, pioneering stem cell trial participant and ALS advocate Read More »
A sad, but not surprising day for the stem cell field as the biotech StemCells, Inc. announced that it is winding down its operations after terminating its spinal cord injury trial called the Pathway Study. The data generated so far did not justify continuing the trial. StemCells, Inc. (stock symbol STEM) has struggled financially for …
End of line for StemCells Inc., pioneering & controversial stem cell biotech Read More »
Each year around this time I check up on my past year’s predictions for the stem cell field. For 2015 I made 20 predictions. You can see past 10 predictions lists for 2013 and 2014. It’s pretty interesting to look back at where the focus was in past years and what my crystal ball yielded …
How did my 20 stem cell predictions for 2015 fare? Read More »
To get from point A of a stem cell discovery to point B of a patient actually receiving a treatment based on that discovery is a long and non-linear road, which requires biotech company research. Stem cell biotech companies including publicly traded companies are an integral part of the field making that journey. How those …
Each year towards the end of December I make predictions for the coming year as I did for 2015. In the past I usually make a top 10 prediction list, but for this year I made 20 predictions. Admittedly some of them may have been more hopes than predictions. At mid-year today on June 30th, …
How are my 20 stem cell predictions for 2015 doing? Read More »
On Thursday here at UC Davis School of Medicine we held our second annual Stem Cell Ethics Symposium. The symposium was organized by Drs. Mark Yarborough and Nanette Joyce as well as me. In this post I report on key take homes from the meeting and summarize the specific talks. As far as I know, this is one of the few …
Meeting review of unique stem cell ethics symposium @UCDAVIS Read More »
Every year I do a list of top predictions for the coming year for the stem cell and regenerative medicine field. For example, you can see past top 10 predictions lists for 2013 and 2014. What’s in store for 2015 from the stem cell crystal ball? There is so much going on that for this …