Geron shutting down stem cell trial
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The company conducting the world's first clinical trial of a therapy using human embryonic stem cells said Monday that it was halting that trial and leaving the stem cell business.
The company, Geron, said its move did not reflect a lack of promise for the controversial field. Instead, with money scarce, it decided to focus on its experimental cancer therapies, which are further along in development. "I deeply believe in the promise of stem cells," Geron chief executive John Scarlett said in an interview. "I don't think that promise is in any way, shape or form changed by what we're doing."
Still, the move is expected to be widely seen as a setback for the field, because of Geron's central role. The company, based in Menlo Park, Calif., helped pay for the initial derivation of human embryonic stem cells at the University of Wisconsin in the late 1990s, giving it fundamental patent rights in the field.
In 2010, after a long struggle to win Food and Drug Administration permission, it began the first clinical trial of a therapy derived from embryonic stem cells, in spinal cord patients.
Embryonic stem cells can turn into virtually any type of tissue in the body, so some doctors hopel they may one day be used to create replacement cells or tissues to fight a vast array of diseases. But the field has been controversial because creating embryonic cells usually involves destruction of human embryos.
In the clinical trial, nervous system cells derived from embryonic cells were being injected into people with severe spinal cord injury. So far, four patients have been treated. Mr. Scarlett said there were "no signs" that the treatment was helping patients. But that was not expected in the initial trial, mainly looking at safety. So far, he said, there had been no sign of safety problems.
Mr. Scarlett, said Geron was not divesting itself of the stem cell business because of trial results. He said it needed to conserve resources at a time when it was difficult for small, unprofitable life science firms to raise capital.
First Published November 15, 2011 12:00 am
