The recent conference call by International Stem Cell Corp., covering sales and other financial data for the 4th quarter and full year for 2012, provided important insights into the prior year’s scientific accomplishments.
In particular, the company made significant progress with their Parkinson’s program, progress which will now be accelerated with the addition of Dr. Evan Snyder, a renowned neurobiologist and head of the FDA’s Cellular, Tissue, and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee, as a non-compensated member of the company’s Board of Advisors. Dr. Snyder’s help in navigating the complex FDA approval process should help greatly in moving the program into clinical trials over the next 1-2 years. As safety data in humans is accumulated, many other areas should open up for the company, with opportunities in the areas of stroke or traumatic brain injury, a move which could transform the company.
ISCO also successfully completed the first phase in their stem cell banking program, setting up clinics and associated processes, recruiting a pool of donors, as well as generating new clinical grade parthenogenetic stem cell lines for use in future clinical trials. In addition, the company made important advances in their liver program, showing how their cells can be used in the treatment of congenital liver diseases. Patent protection was also received that protects the way liver and pancreas cell precursors are made.
Another important development was a new procedure for producing iPS cells (induced pluripotent stem cells), which should be significantly safer than current approaches that rely on viruses. The growing popularity of iPS cells in regenerative medicine has highlighted the need to overcome two major issues with the cells: (1) The safety of iPS cells is open to question due to the use of viruses, and this is of primary concern to the FDA, and (2) Most intellectual property involving iPS cells is controlled by a handful of organizations, making it difficult and expensive to commercialize a therapeutic product based on this technology. ISCO’s newly developed iPS technology solves both of these problems, since it does not rely on viruses, nor on the intellectual property of others.
For additional information, visit www.InternationalStemCell.com
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