BURLINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AlloCure, Inc. today announced that it has initiated a phase 2 clinical trial of AC607, the companys mesenchymal stem cell therapy, as a potential treatment for acute kidney injury (AKI). The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-center trial, designated ACT-AKI (AC607 Trial in Acute Kidney Injury) (NCT01602328), will enroll 200 cardiac surgery subjects at leading tertiary care centers in the United States. ACT-AKI follows the positive results from a phase 1 AC607 trial in cardiac surgery subjects, which showed an excellent safety profile and encouraging data on the incidence of AKI and hospital length of stay, said Robert M. Brenner, M.D., AlloCure President and Chief Executive Officer. We have worked closely with leaders in the field on the design of ACT-AKI, and trial initiation represents an important milestone for AlloCure and the patients we collectively serve. AC607 is a promising therapeutic candidate for AKI, for which effective therapies are greatly needed, said Richard J. Glassock, M.D., Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. The initiation of ACT-AKI represents a critical step in the development of an innovative therapy for this all-too-common, serious and costly medical condition, for which no … Continue reading →

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- One of the most promising and exciting treatment avenues for multiple sclerosis is the use of a patient's own stem cells to try to stop -- or even repair -- some of the disease's brain tissue damage. But injecting a patient with a dose of his or her own bone-marrow stem cells was actually a pretty crude method of treating the disease, because no one was quite sure how or why it worked. Last year, doctors at the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center and Case Western Reserve University began trying this for MS patients in a Phase 1 clinical trial after positive results were seen in mice. Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks the myelin sheaths that surround and protect nerve cells. When myelin is damaged, the nerve cells are exposed and unable to do their job, which is sending signals to the brain and back. This results in the loss of motor skills, coordination and cognitive abilities. Like many other researchers using stem cells, the local group didn't know exactly how their treatment worked, but they knew that when they gave these human mesenchymal stem cells, or MSCs, … Continue reading →

SEOUL, South Korea, Sept. 4, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Korean researchers, reporting the results of a major study in the Circulation Journal, found that the transplantation adipose (fat) derived stem cells resulted in the regeneration of blood vessels in patients who were otherwise expecting to receive limb amputations due to damaged arteries and lack of blood circulation. Researchers at Pusan National University, led by Dr. Han Cheol Lee, describe how patients with critical limb ischemia (hereafter, CLI, example of which include Buerger's Disease and diabetic foot ulcers) were injected with adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cell manufactured by RNL BIO. As a result of the remarkable adipose stem cell process of RNL BIO, researchers found that immediate new blood vessel generation was identified. (The title of article is "Safety and Effect of Adipose Tissue-Derived Stem Cell Implantation in Patients With Critical Limb Ischemia") CLI results from lack of circulation due to small artery damage and subsequent tissue necrosis. Patients with severe CLI often face limb amputation. Buerger's Disease, or diabetic foot ulcer, are of the same kind. Risk factors are diabetic mellitus, hypertension, high cholesterol and smoking. There is no known cure to date. Currently percutaneous transluminal angioplasty or PTA may treat 60-70% … Continue reading →