Blood stem cell transplantation following high dose chemotherapy is standard of care and potentially curative for aggressive forms of lymphoma. However, this treatment regimen is limited by severe toxicity and life-threatening complications due to delayed recovery of the blood system and vascular related damage of multiple organs.
Today the governing Board of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) funded a Phase 3 clinical trial to support development of a safer, more tolerable alternative.
This brings the number of clinical trials funded by CIRM to 86.
The Board awarded $15,000,000 to Dr. Paul Finnegan and Angiocrine Bioscience to test AB-205, human endothelial cells engineered to express a pro-survival factor.
Prior data suggest that, in the setting of chemotherapy and stem cell transplantation, AB-205 cell therapy can accelerate the recovery of the blood system and protects from toxicity by enhancing the recovery from vascular damage. AB-205 is being studied in a Phase 3 trial in adults with lymphoma undergoing high-dose chemotherapy and autologous blood stem cell transplant.
“If successful, this approach can overcome hurdles to the success of chemotherapy and blood stem cell transplantation for the treatment of advanced blood cancer,” says Dr. Maria T. Millan, President and CEO of CIRM. “This Phase 3 trial is the culmination of preclinical research and the initial clinical trial previously funded by CIRM.”
Lymphoma is the most common blood cancer and one of the most common cancers in the United States, accounting for about 4% of all cancers according to the American Cancer Society and the 6th most commonly diagnosed cancer among men and women in California. It is estimated that there will be 89,010 new cases of lymphoma and 21,170 lymphoma related deaths in the US in 2022 alone. In California, it is estimated that there will be over 9,250 new cases of lymphoma with over 2,100 deaths.
“Angiocrine Bioscience is honored to be awarded this grant from CIRM to support our AB-205 Phase 3 trial,” commented Angiocrine CEO Dr. Paul Finnegan. “CIRM has been an instrumental partner in our development of AB-205, a novel therapeutic that acts on the patients’ endogenous stem cell niches. The grant award will considerably aid in our effort to bring forth a solution to the unmet need of transplant-related complications.”
The Stem Cellar 
Cancer patients undergoing high dose chemotherapy require bone marrow transplantation to improve their immunity. However, the delayed of blood system development, vascularization and recovery of immunity, may cut short the survival rates of patients. Interestingly, supplement of AB205 may give additional advantage for cancer patients with high dose chemotherapy to improve their immunity and survived for longer lives . The main concern factor is autologues stem cells transplantation may put patients at high risk of cancer to relapse.
During the process of embryogenesis, fertilization between the egg and spermatozoa produces zygote, which is the first of a kind of human cell containing the genetic information from both paternal and maternal. The first human cell may involve many division process or embryogenesis to produce many different types of cells, tissues and organs for embryo formation. Hence, all cells of an embryo constitute the whole sets of gene that are similar to the precursor one and the expression of different sets of gene produce different types of cell, tissue and organ. Therefore, isolation of stem cells or iPSCs from those cancer patients may containing mutated gene which can be triggered for tumor formation.
As cancers are heterogeneous, they have no stable of genotype and phenotype. Thus, autologous stem cells may inherit the mutated gene which may induce cancer to become more progressive and metastatic. Therefore, the careful isolation of healthy stem cells for cell based therapy may improve clinical outcome of cancer patients to survive longer and healthy.