Mayo Clinic and W. L. Gore & Associates have announced a partnership to develop implantable cell therapies to treat debilitating conditions with no cure. The for-profit company, Avobis Bio, will combine a patient’s own stem cells with bioabsorbable scaffolds to stimulate the healing of perianal fistulas, painful tunneling wounds that affect patients with Crohn’s disease. […]
Stem Cells
Frequency Therapeutics registers $100m IPO
Frequency Therapeutics has registered an initial public offering of common stock worth $100 million. Woburn, Mass.-based Frequency Therapeutics did not disclose the number of shares it seeks to sell or the price range of the offered units. The company applied to the Securities and Exchange Commission have its common stock listed on The Nasdaq Global Market […]
AxoSim touts results of nerve-on-a-chip study
A new study of AxoSim’s Nerve-on-a-Chip technology shows that the platform accurately provides key physiological readouts that could help speed the development of drugs to treat neurological disorders. The study also shows that Nerve-on-a-Chip technology is the first all-human in vitro model that can measure critical factors that were formerly only available using live animal models. These […]
FDA goes after California stem cell doc for unapproved breast implant device
The FDA this week sent a warning letter to a Beverly Hills, Calif.-based surgeon for their marketing of an unapproved implantable device, dubbed the Pocket Protector, which the surgeon claims can prevent and treat capsular contracture, or scar tissue tightening, during breast implant procedures. In its letter, the federal watchdog also accuses the surgeon, Dr. […]
RenovaCare chairman ponies up nearly $16m for wound-healing stem cell SkinGun
RenovaCare (Scottsdale, Ariz.) has announced an equity financing for $15.5 million from Kalen Capital Corporation, the family office of Harmel Rayat, who is the majority shareholder and chairman of RenovaCare. The equity financing increases his family office’s total equity investment in RenovaCare to over $20 million. “Our long-term investment in RenovaCare speaks to our conviction that […]
Anika collabs to develop injectable stem cell therapy for osteoarthritis
Anika Therapeutics (NSDQ:ANIK) has inked an agreement with the Institute of Integrative Biology at the University of Liverpool to develop an injectable mesenchymal stem cell therapy to treat osteoarthritis. As a result of the three-year research collaboration, the group hopes to have a lead candidate that it can take into clinical trials. Get the full story at our […]
Frequency touts first-in-human safety study for hearing loss therapy
Frequency Therapeutics has finished a first-in-human study of its progenitor cell activation therapy, FX-322, in nine adults with severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss. The company’s candidate is a combination of small molecules that are designed to activate progenitor cells and trigger the formation of new hair cells in the inner ear. Get the full story […]
Semma Therapeutics closes $114m round to advance cell therapy for Type I diabetes
Semma Therapeutics has closed an oversubscribed $114 million Series B round to help fund the development of its encapsulated stem cell-derived islet therapy for Type I diabetes. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company reported that it plans to use the newly-acquired funds to bring its cell therapy through clinical proof-of-concept studies, as well as explore other regenerative medicine […]
Researchers reverse diabetes in mice by infusing them with blood stem cells
Researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital successfully reversed Type I diabetes in a mouse model using blood stem cells, according to a study published this week in Science Translational Medicine. The researchers used cells that were pre-treated to make more of a protein, PD-L1, which is deficient in mice and people with Type I diabetes. “There’s really a reshaping […]
BrainStorm enrolls first ALS patient in late-stage NurOwn trial
Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics (NSDQ:BCLI) said today that the first patients have been enrolled in its Phase III trial evaluating NurOwn as a treatment for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, at Massachusetts General Hospital and UC Irvine Medical Center. The trial, which is slated to enroll 200 patients, is designed to include the pre-specified patient subgroups who […]
FDA intervenes after stem cell center offers unproven treatment to cancer patients
The FDA is cracking down on stem cell clinics that administer unproven and potentially dangerous treatments to patients, citing a California-based clinic that the regulatory watchdog said was treating cancer patients with the smallpox vaccine. The only reliable treatment is this stem cell treatment therapy, it´s the only one that has been proven yet to […]
