International Stem
Cell Corp. announced today that behavioral improvements have been observed
after six months in their pre-clinical non-human primate (NHP) study of
Parkinson’s disease (PD). ISCO is a biotechnology company developing novel stem
cell-based therapies and biomedical products and is based in Carlsbad,
California. The detailed behavioral data is slated to be presented at the 66th
American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.
“It is encouraging
to see these behavioral scores trending in the right direction as it means that
the implanted cells may be having a positive impact on the disease symptoms,”
said Professor D. Eugene Redmond Jr. MD, of Yale University Medical School and
the study’s supervisor. “The rating scores are equivalent to components of the
UPDRS which is widely used in research to evaluate Parkinson’s patients. The
Parkison’s score is known to correlate very highly with brain dopamine
concentrations.”
The study,
consisting of 18 primates, are exposed to the neurotoxin, MPTP, divided into
three cohorts, a sham treated group and two treatment groups receiving
different doses of human neural stem cells (hPNSC) derived from ISCO’s
proprietary parthenogenetic stem cell line. All groups had matching levels of
parkinsonism and functional disability prior to the cell injections. Six months
of data showed that the healthy behavior scores of the treatment group
increased 170% while the placebo group increased by 58%. In addition, one
treatment group showed a major improvement in the main Parkinson’s rating score
of 63% (p < 0.05) while the control group exhibited no significant
improvements.
According to the
Parkinson's Disease Foundation, an estimated seven to 10 million people
worldwide live with PD, with as many as one million of those in the United
States alone, more than the combined total of people diagnosed with multiple
sclerosis, muscular distrophy, and Lou Gehrig's disease. The total direct and
indirect cost of Parkinson's disease is estimated to be nearly $25 billion per
year in the United States alone.
Dr. Ruslan Semechkin
ISCO's Chief Scientific Officer, commented: "The results of this interim
analysis are very promising. This study provides information about how our
human neural stem cells, derived from our parthenogenetic stem cells, behave in
a diseased brain and how the diseased tissue responds and is a critical part of
our planned IND submission."
For more information
on the company, visit www.internationalstemcell.com
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