Three families battling a life-threatening immune disorder got some great news last week. A clinical trial that could save the life of their child has once again been given the go-ahead by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The clinical trial is the work of UCLA’s Dr. Don Kohn, and was strongly supported by CIRM. It is targeting ADA-SCID, a condition where the child is born without a functioning immune system so even a simple infection could prove fatal. In the past they were called “bubble babies” because some had been placed inside sterile plastic bubbles to protect them from germs.
Dr. Kohn’s approach – using the patient’s own blood stem cells, modified in the lab to correct the genetic mutation that causes the problem – had shown itself to be amazingly effective. In a study in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers showed that of 50 patients treated all had done well and 97 percent were considered cured.
UCLA licensed the therapy to Orchard Therapeutics, who planned to complete the testing needed to apply for permission to make it more widely available. But Orchard ran into problems and shelved the therapy.
After lengthy negotiations Orchard returned the therapy to UCLA last year and now the FDA has given clearance for UCLA to resume treating patients. That is expected to start early next year using CIRM funds left over when Orchard halted its work.
One of the people who played a big role in helping persuade Orchard to return the therapy to UCLA is Alysia Vaccaro. She is the mother of Evie, a child born with ADA-SCID who was cured by Dr. Kohn and his team and is now a thriving 9 year old.
You can watch an interview we did with Alysia about the impact this research has had on her family, and how important it is for other families with ADA-SCID kids.
Now there’s more encouraging news from a CIRM-funded clinical trial with Jasper Therapeutics. They have announced that they have tested their approach in 16 patients, with encouraging results and no serious adverse events.
Let’s back up a little. Children born with SCID have no functioning immune system, so even a simple infection can prove life threatening. Left untreated, children with SCID often die in the first few years of life. Several of the approaches CIRM has funded use the child’s own blood stem cells to help fix the problem. But at Jasper Therapeutics they are using another approach. They use a bone marrow or hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HCT). This replaces the child’s own blood supply with one that is free of the SCID mutation, which helps restore their immune system.
However, there’s a problem. Most bone marrow transplants use chemotherapy or radiation to destroy the patient’s own unhealthy blood stem cells and make room for the new, healthy ones. It can be effective, but it is also toxic and complex and can only be performed by specialized teams in major medical centers, making access particularly difficult for poor and underserved communities.
To get around that problem Jasper Therapeutics is using an antibody called JSP191 – developed with CIRM funding – that directs the patient’s own immune cells to kill diseased blood stem cells, creating room to transplant new, healthy cells. To date the therapy has already been tested in 16 SCID patients.
In addition to treating 16 patients treated without any apparent problems, Jasper has also been granted Fast Track Designation by the US Food and Drug Administration. This can help speed up the review of treatments that target serious unmet conditions. They’ve also been granted both Orphan and Rare Pediatric Disease designations. Orphan drug designation qualifies sponsors for incentives such as tax credits for clinical trials. Rare Pediatric Disease designation means that if the FDA does eventually approve JSP191, then Jasper can apply to receive a priority review of an application to use the product for a different disease, such as someone who is getting a bone marrow transplant for sickle cell disease or severe auto immune diseases.
In a news release, Ronald Martell, President and CEO of Jasper Therapeutics said:
“The FDA’s Fast Track designation granted for JSP191 in Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID) reinforces the large unmet medical need for patients with this serious disease. Along with its previous designations of Orphan and Rare Pediatric Disease for JSP191, the FDA’s Fast Track recognizes JSP191’s potential role in improving clinical outcomes for SCID patients, many of whom are too fragile to tolerate the toxic chemotherapy doses typically used in a transplant.”
For children born with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) life can be very challenging. SCID means they have no functioning immune system, so even a simple infection can prove life threatening. Left untreated, children with SCID often die in the first few years of life.
There are stem cell/gene therapies funded by the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), such as ones at UCLA and UCSF/St. Judes, but an alternative method of treating, and even curing the condition, is a bone marrow or hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HCT). This replaces the child’s blood supply with one that is free of the SCID mutation, which helps restore their immune system.
However, current HCT methods involve the use of chemotherapy or radiation to destroy the patient’s own unhealthy blood stem cells and make room for the new, healthy ones. This approach is toxic and complex and can only be performed by specialized teams in major medical centers, making access particularly difficult for poor and underserved communities.
To change that, Dr. Judy Shizuru at Stanford University, with CIRM funding, developed an antibody that can direct the patient’s own immune cells to kill diseased blood stem cells, creating the room needed to transplant new, healthy cells. The goal was to make stem cell transplants safer and more effective for the treatment of many life-threatening blood disorders.
That approach, JSP191, is now being championed by Jasper Therapeutics and they just got some very good news from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA has granted JSP191 Fast Track Designation, which can speed up the review of therapies designed to treat serious conditions and fill unmet medical needs.
In a news release, Ronald Martell, President and CEO of Jasper Therapeutics, said this is good news for the company and patients: “This new Fast Track designation recognizes the potential role of JSP191 in improving clinical outcomes for these patients and will allow us to more closely work with the FDA in the upcoming months to determine a path toward a Biologics License Application (BLA) submission.”
Getting a BLA means Jasper will be able to market the antibody in the US and make it available to all those who need it.
This is the third boost from the FDA for Jasper. Previously the agency granted JSP191 both Orphan and Rare Pediatric Disease designations. Orphan drug designation qualifies sponsors for incentives such as tax credits for clinical trials. Rare Pediatric Disease designation means that if the FDA does eventually approve JSP191, then Jasper can apply to receive a priority review of an application to use the product for a different disease, such as someone who is getting a bone marrow transplant for sickle cell disease or severe auto immune diseases.
It’s hard to think of something as being rare when it affects up to 30 million Americans and 300 million people worldwide. But the truth is there are more than 6,000 conditions – those affecting 200,000 people or fewer – that are considered rare.
Today, February 28th, is Rare Disease Day. It’s a day to remind ourselves of the millions of people, and their families, struggling with these diseases. These conditions are also called or orphan diseases because, in many cases, drug companies were not interested in adopting them to develop treatments.
At the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), we have no such reservations. In fact last Friday our governing Board voted to invest almost $12 million to support a clinical trial for IPEX syndrome. IPEX syndrome is a condition where the body can’t control or restrain an immune response, so the person’s immune cells attack their own healthy tissue. This leads to the development of Type 1 diabetes, severe eczema, damage to the small intestines and kidneys and failure to thrive. It’s diagnosed in infancy, most of those affected are boys, and it is often fatal.
Taylor Lookofsky (who has IPEX syndrome) and his father Brian
IPEX is one of two dozen rare diseases that CIRM is funding a clinical trial for. In fact, more than one third of all the projects we fund target a rare disease or condition. Those include:
Some might question the wisdom of investing hundreds of millions of dollars in conditions that affect a relatively small number of patients. But if you see the faces of these patients and get to know their families, as we do, you know that often agencies like CIRM are their only hope.
Dr. Maria Millan, CIRM’s President and CEO, says the benefits of one successful approach can often extend far beyond one rare disease.
“Children with IPEX syndrome clearly represent a group of patients with an unmet medical need, and this therapy could make a huge difference in their lives. Success of this treatment in this rare disease presents far-reaching potential to develop treatments for a larger number of patients with a broad array of immune disorders.”
CIRM is proud to fund and spread awareness of rare diseases and invites you to watch this video about how they affect families around the world.
When Hataalii Begay was born in a remote part of the Navajo nation he was diagnosed with a rare, usually fatal condition. Today, thanks to a therapy developed at UCSF and funded by CIRM, he’s a normal healthy four year old boy running around in cowboy boots.
That stem cell therapy could now help save the lives of other children born with this deadly immune disorder because it has been granted fast-track review status by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The disorder is Artemis-SCID, a form of severe combined immunodeficiency disease. Children born with this condition have no functioning immune system so even a simple infection can prove life-threatening or fatal.
Currently, the only approved treatment for Artemis-SCID is a bone-marrow transplant, but many children are unable to find a healthy matched donor for that procedure. Even when they do find a donor they often need regular injections of immunoglobulin to boost their immune system.
In this clinical trial, UCSF Doctors Mort Cowan and Jennifer Puck are using the patient’s own blood stem cells, taken from their bone marrow. In the lab, the cells are modified to correct the genetic mutation that causes Artemis-SCID and then re-infused back into the patients. The goal is that over the course of several months these cells will create a new blood supply, one that is free of Artemis-SCID, and that will in turn help repair the child’s immune system.
So far the team has treated ten newly-diagnosed infants and three older children who failed transplants. Dr. Cowan says early data from the trial is encouraging. “With gene therapy, we are seeing these babies getting older. They have normal T-cell immunity and are getting immunized and vaccinated. You wouldn’t know they had any sort of condition if you met them; it’s very heartening.”
Because of that encouraging data, the FDA is granting this approach Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) designation. RMAT is a fast-track designation that can help speed up the development, review and potential approval of treatments for serious or life-threatening diseases.
“This is great news for the team at UCSF and in particular for the children and families affected by Artemis-SCID,” says Dr. Maria T. Millan, the President and CEO of CIRM. “The RMAT designation means that innovative forms of cell and gene therapies like this one may be able to accelerate their route to full approval by the FDA and be available to all the patients who need it.”
Ronnie with his parents Pawash Priyank and Upasana Thakur.
Since its launch in 2004, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) has been a leader in growing the stem cell and regenerative medicine field while keeping the needs of patients at the core of its mission.
To date, CIRM has:
Advanced stem cell research and therapy development for more than 75 diseases.
Funded 76 clinical trials with 3,200+ patients enrolled.
Helped cure over 40 children of fatal immunological disorders with gene-modified cell therapies.
One of these patients is Ronnie, who just days after being born was diagnosed with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), a rare immune disorder that is often fatal within two years.
A recent photo of Ronnie enjoying a day at the beach.
Fortunately, doctors told his parents about a CIRM-funded clinical trial conducted by UC San Francisco and St. Jude Children’s Hospital. Doctors took some of Ronnie’s own blood stem cells and, in the lab, corrected the genetic mutation that caused the condition. They then gave him a mild dose of chemotherapy to clear space in his bone marrow for the corrected cells to be placed and to grow. Over the next few months, the blood stem cells created a new blood supply and repaired Ronnie’s immune system. He is now a happy, healthy four-year-old boy who loves going to school with other children.
Evie Junior participated in a CIRM-funded clinical trial in 2020. Photo: Jaquell Chandler
Another patient, Evie Junior, is pioneering the search for a cure for sickle cell disease: a painful, life-threatening condition.
In July of 2020, Evie took part in a CIRM-funded clinical trial where his own blood stem cells were genetically modified to overcome the disease-causing mutation. Those cells were returned to him, and the hope is they’ll create a sickle cell-free blood supply. Evie hasn’t had any crippling bouts of pain or had to go to the hospital since his treatment.
To demonstrate treatment efficacy, study investigators will continue to monitor the recovery of Evie, Ronnie, and others who participate in clinical trials.
CIRM’s new strategic plan seeks to help real life patients like Ronnie and Evie by optimizing its clinical trial funding partnership model to advance more therapies to FDA for approval.
In addition, CIRM will develop ways to overcome manufacturing hurdles for the delivery of regenerative medicine therapies and create Community Care Centers of Excellence that support diverse patient participation in the rapidly maturing regenerative medicine landscape. Stay tuned as we cover these goals here on The Stem Cellar.
Dr. Rosa Bacchetta on the right with Brian Lookofsky (left) and Taylor Lookofsky after CIRM funded Dr. Bacchetta’s work in October 2019. Taylor has IPEX syndrome
It’s always lovely to end the week on a bright note and that’s certainly the case this week, thanks to some encouraging news about CIRM-funded research targeting blood disorders that affect the immune system.
Stanford’s Dr. Rosa Bacchetta and her team learned that their proposed therapy for IPEX Syndrome had been given the go-ahead by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to test it in people in a Phase 1 clinical trial.
IPEX Syndrome (it’s more formal and tongue twisting name is Immune dysregulation Polyendocrinopathy Enteropathy X-linked syndrome) is a life-threatening disorder that affects children. It’s caused by a mutation in the FOXP3 gene. Immune cells called regulatory T Cells normally function to protect tissues from damage but in patients with IPEX syndrome, lack of functional Tregs render the body’s own tissues and organs to autoimmune attack that could be fatal in early childhood.
Current treatment options include a bone marrow transplant which is limited by available donors and graft versus host disease and immune suppressive drugs that are only partially effective. Dr. Rosa Bacchetta and her team at Stanford will use gene therapy to insert a normal version of the FOXP3 gene into the patient’s own T Cells to restore the normal function of regulatory T Cells.
This approach has already been accorded an orphan drug and rare pediatric disease designation by the FDA (we blogged about it last year)
Orphan drug designation is a special status given by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for potential treatments of rare diseases that affect fewer than 200,000 in the U.S. This type of status can significantly help advance treatments for rare diseases by providing financial incentives in the form of tax credits towards the cost of clinical trials and prescription drug user fee waivers.
Under the FDA’s rare pediatric disease designation program, the FDA may grant priority review to Dr. Bacchetta if this treatment eventually receives FDA approval. The FDA defines a rare pediatric disease as a serious or life-threatening disease in which the serious or life-threatening manifestations primarily affect individuals aged from birth to 18 years and affects fewer than 200,000 people in the U.S.
Congratulations to the team and we wish them luck as they begin the trial.
Dr. Donald Kohn, Photo courtesy UCLA
Someone who needs no introduction to regular readers of this blog is UCLA’s Dr. Don Kohn. A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine highlighted how his work in developing a treatment for severe combined immune deficiency (SCID) has helped save the lives of dozens of children.
Now a new study in the journal Blood shows that those benefits are long-lasting, with 90% of patients who received the treatment eight to 11 years ago still disease-free.
In a news release Dr. Kohn said: “What we saw in the first few years was that this therapy worked, and now we’re able to say that it not only works, but it works for more than 10 years. We hope someday we’ll be able to say that these results last for 80 years.”
Ten children received the treatment between 2009 and 2012. Nine were babies or very young children, one was 15 years old at the time. That teenager was the only one who didn’t see their immune system restored. Dr. Kohn says this suggests that the therapy is most effective in younger children.
Dr. Kohn has since modified the approach his team uses and has seen even more impressive and, we hope, equally long-lasting results.
The second Wednesday in October is celebrated as Stem Cell Awareness Day. It’s an event that CIRM has been part of since then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger launched it back in 2008 saying: ”The discoveries being made today in our Golden State will have a great impact on many around the world for generations to come.”
In the past we would have helped coordinate presentations by scientists in schools and participated in public events. COVID of course has changed all that. So, this year, to help mark the occasion we asked some people who have been in the forefront of making Governor Schwarzenegger’s statement come true, to share their thoughts and feelings about the day. Here’s what they had to say.
What do you think is the biggest achievement so far in stem cell research?
Dr. Jan Nolta
Jan Nolta, PhD., Director of the Stem Cell Program at UC Davis School of Medicine, and directs the new Institute for Regenerative Cures. “The work of Don Kohn and his UCLA colleagues and team members throughout the years- developing stem cell gene therapy cures for over 50 children with Bubble baby disease. I was very fortunate to work with Don for the first 15 years of my career and know that development of these cures was guided by his passion to help his patients.
Dr. Clive Svendsen
Clive Svendsen, PhD. Director, Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute at Cedars-Sinai: “Without a doubt the discovery of how to make human iPSCs by Shinya Yamanaka and Jamie Thomson.”
When people ask you what kind of impact CIRM and stem cell research has had on your life what do you say?
Ronnie and his parents celebrating his 1st birthday. (Photo courtesy of Pawash Priyank)
Pawash Priyank and Upasana Thakur, parents of Ronnie,who was born with a life-threatening immune disorder but is thriving today thanks to a CIRM-funded clinical trial at UC San Francisco. “This is beyond just a few words and sentences but we will give it a shot. We are living happily today seeing Ronnie explore the world day by day, and this is only because of what CIRM does every day and what Stem cell research has done to humanity. Researchers and scientists come up with innovative ideas almost every day around the globe but unless those ideas are funded or brought to implementation in any manner, they are just in the minds of those researchers and would never be useful for humanity in any manner. CIRM has been that source to bring those ideas to the table, provide facilities and mechanisms to get those actually implemented which eventually makes babies like Ronnie survive and see the world. That’s the impact CIRM has. We have witnessed and heard several good arguments back in India in several forums which could make difference in the world in different sectors of lives but those ideas never come to light because of the lack of organizations like CIRM, lack of interest from people running the government. An organization like CIRM and the interest of the government to fund them with an interest in science and technology actually changes the lives of people when some of those ideas come to see the light of real implementation.
What are your biggest hopes for the future at UC Davis?
Jan Nolta, PhD: “The future of stem cell and gene therapy research is very bright at UC Davis, thanks to CIRM and our outstanding leadership. We currently have 48 clinical trials ongoing in this field, with over 20 in the pipeline, and are developing a new education and technology complex, Aggie Square, next to the Institute for Regenerative Cures, where our program is housed. We are committed to our very diverse patient population throughout the Sacramento region and Northern California, and to expanding and increasing the number of novel therapies that can be brought to all patients who need them.”
What are your biggest hopes for the future at Cedars-Sinai?
Clive Svendsen, PhD: “That young investigators will get CIRM or NIH funding and be leaders in the regenerative medicine field.”
What do you hope is the future for stem cell research?
Pawash Priyank and Upasana Thakur: “We always have felt good about stem cell therapy. For us, a stem cell has transformed our lives completely. The correction of sequencing in the DNA taken out of Ronnie and injecting back in him has given him life. It has given him the immune system to fight infections. Seeing him grow without fear of doing anything, or going anywhere gives us so much happiness every hour. That’s the impact of stem cell research. With right minds continuing to research further in stem cell therapy bounded by certain good processes & laws around (so that misuse of the therapy couldn’t be done) will certainly change the way treatments are done for certain incurable diseases. I certainly see a bright future for stem cell research.”
On a personal note what is the moment that touched you the most in this journey.
Jan Nolta, PhD: “Each day a new patient or their story touches my heart. They are our inspiration for working hard to bring new options to their care through cell and gene therapy.”
Clive Svendsen, PhD: “When I realized we would get the funding to try and treat ALS with stem cells”
How important is it to raise awareness about stem cell research and to educate the next generation about it?
Pawash Priyank and Upasana Thakur: “Implementing stem cell therapy as a curriculum in the educational systems right from the beginning of middle school and higher could prevent false propaganda of it through social media. Awareness among people with accurate articles right from the beginning of their education is really important. This will also encourage the new generation to choose this as a subject in their higher studies and contribute towards more research to bring more solutions for a variety of diseases popping up every day.”
Often on the Stem Cellar we feature CIRM-funded work that is helping advance the field, unlocking some of the secrets of stem cells and how best to use them to develop promising therapies. But every once in a while it’s good to remind ourselves that this work, while it may often seem slow, is already saving lives.
Meet Ja’Ceon Golden. He was one of the first patients treated at U.C. San Francisco, in partnership with St. Jude Children’s Hospital in Memphis, as part of a CIRM-funded study to treat a rare but fatal disorder called Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID). Ja’Ceon was born without a functioning immune system, so even a simple cold could have been fatal.
At UCSF a team led by Dr. Mort Cowan, took blood stem cells from Ja’Ceon and sent them to St. Jude where another team corrected the genetic mutation that causes SCID. The cells were then returned to UCSF and re-infused into Ja’Ceon.
Over the next few months those blood stem cells grew in number and eventually helped heal his immune system.
He recently came back to UCSF for more tests, just to make sure everything is OK. With him, as she has been since his birth, was his aunt and guardian Dannie Hawkins. She says Ja’Ceon is doing just fine, that he has just started pre-K, is about to turn five years old and in January will be five years post-therapy. Effectively, Ja’Ceon is cured.
SCID is a rare disease, there are only around 70 cases in the US every year, but CIRM funding has helped produce cures for around 60 kids so far. A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that a UCLA approach cured 95 percent of the children treated.
The numbers are impressive. But not nearly as impressive, or as persuasive of the power of regenerative medicine, as Ja’Ceon and Dannie’s smiles.
Anyone who knows anything about CIRM knows about Bob Klein. He’s the main author and driving force behind both Proposition 71 and Proposition 14, the voter-approved ballot initiatives that first created and then refunded CIRM. It’s safe to say that without Bob there’d be no CIRM.
Recently we had the great good fortune to sit down with Bob to chat about the challenges of getting a proposition on the ballot in a time of pandemic and electoral pandemonium, what he thinks CIRM’s biggest achievements are (so far) and what his future plans are.
The Stem Cellar 