Parkinson’s Phase 1 Trial Patients Receive Neural Stem Cells

A promising start to a Parkinson’s study that already has positive interim results…

A second group of Parkinson’s patients in a Phase 1 clinical trial have received International Stem Cell Corporation’s neural stem cell therapy. The main goal of the trial (NCT02452723) at Royal Melbourne Hospital is to see whether ISCO’s stem cell transplants are safe, and patients can tolerate them. All patients are receiving a specific dose — 30 to 70 million — of the company’s human parthenogenetic neural stem cells (ISC-hpNSC). Researchers are injecting them directly into the striatum and substantia nigra regions of the brain. Researchers are evaluating safety by measuring the incidence of treatment-related adverse events. An effectiveness measure is how the therapy affects patients’ scores on the Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) after 12 months. Second Parkinson’s Group in Phase 1 Trial Receives ISCO’s Neural Stem Cell Therapy

Second Parkinson’s Group in Phase 1 Trial Receives ISCO’s Neural Stem Cell Therapy

The Trials Most Important Facts…

• Patients receive 30 to 70 million neural stem cells (ISC-hpNSC). Researchers inject these cells directly into the patient’s brain.
• The primary objective of trial NCT02452723 undertaken at Royal Melbourne Hospital is to determine if stem cell transplants are safe and how they are tolerated by patients.
• Positive interim results have been announced.
• Six months after receiving 30 million stem cells, patients in the first trial group showed a 24 percent reduction in ‘OFF time’, a period when Parkinson’s symptoms return.
• The treatments extended the period without dyskinesia (abnormality or impairment of voluntary movement) known as ON time by 19 percent.

thumbnail courtesy of parkinsonsnewstoday.com