InVivo Therapeutics (NSDQ:NVIV) said today it added Philadelphia’s Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania as a site in the Inspire study of its neuro-spinal scaffold, bringing the total number of sites up to 20.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based company’s neuro-spinal scaffold is surgically implanted following acute spinal cord injuries to act as a physical substrate for nerve sprouting.
“Penn Medicine has a longstanding tradition of making medical advancements that have helped to mold the standard of care. InVivo’s innovative therapeutic approach holds promise and we look forward to being a part of the study,” site principal investigator Dr. James Schuster said in a prepared statement.
“We are pleased to welcome Dr. Schuster and the team at HUP to our study as the twentieth Inspire site. We have assembled an impressive group of sites and principal investigators; having twenty leading neurosurgeons in the field of spinal cord injury involved in the Inspire study is a remarkable milestone,” CEO Mark Perrin said in a press release.
Last month, InVivo said the 4th patient in the Inspire study of its Neuro-Spinal Scaffold has improved from a complete AIS A spinal cord injury to an incomplete AIS B spinal cord injury.
The company said its objective performance criterion for the study is an improvement of at least 1 AIS grade by 6-months post implantation – and the most recent patient improvement brings the total to 4 of 6 in the trial that have improved from a complete AIS A to an incomplete AIS B grade spinal cord injury.
Earlier in April, InVivo said the 8th patient enrolled in a clinical trial of its spinal scaffold succumbed to his injuries nearly 5 days after a severe car accident. The death appears to be unrelated to InVivo’s bioresorbable neuro-spinal scaffold, which is designed to help heal traumatic spinal cord injuries.
The patient was implanted April 12 with the InVivo device about 71 hours after the car crash, by principal investigator Dr. Travis Dumont of Tucson’s Banner University Medical Center, the company said. The patient died from his injuries 2 days later, InVivo said.
