Henry Klassen

Identifying the visually impaired patients most likely to benefit from jCyte’s stem cell therapy

/ Kevin McCormack / 2 Comments

We have written about jCyte many times on The Stem Cellar. For one reason, they are showing really encouraging results in their treatment for retinitis pigmentosa (RP). And now they have taken an even deeper dive into those results and identified which patients may be most likely to benefit from the therapy.

RP is a rare genetic disorder that slowly destroys the rods and cones, the light sensing cells in the back of the eye. If you look at the image below the one on the left shows normal vision, the one on the right shows what happens with RP. At first you start to lose night vision, then other parts of your vision are slowly eroded until you are legally blind.

RP starts early, often people are diagnosed in their teens and are legally blind by middle age. There is no treatment, no cure. It’s estimated that as many as 100,000 people in the US have RP, as many as two million worldwide.

That’s where jCyte comes in. They developed jCell, a therapy using adult stem cells that have been changed into human retinal progenitor cells (hRPCs). These are injected into the back of the eye where they secrete small proteins called neurotrophic factors.

Dr. Henry Klassen, one of the founders of jCyte, says jCell works by preserving the remaining photoreceptors in the eye, and helping them bounce back.

“Typically, people think about the disease as a narrowing of this peripheral vision in a very nice granular way, but that’s actually not what happens. What happens in the disease is that patients lose like islands of vision. So, what we’re doing in our tests is actually measuring […] islands that the patients have at baseline, and then what we’re seeing after treatment is that the islands are expanding. It’s similar to the way that one would track, let’s say a tumor, in oncology of course we’re looking for the opposite effect. We’re looking for the islands of vision to expand.”

And in patients treated with jCell those islands of vision did expand. The team followed patients for one-year post treatment and found that patients given the highest dose, six million cells, experienced the biggest improvement and were able to read, on average, 16 more letters on a standard eye chart than they had been before treatment. In comparison people given a sham or placebo treatment only had an improvement of less than two letters.

This group also experienced improvements in their peripheral vision, their ability to distinguish objects in the foreground from the background and were better able to get around in low light.

But that’s not all. Dr. Sunil Srivastava, with the Cleveland Clinic Cole Eye Institute, did a detailed analysis of patients treated in the trial and identified central foveal thickness (CFT- the part of the eye located in the center of the retina) as an important marker for who would be most likely to benefit from jCell. People who started out with a higher CFT score were most likely to get the biggest benefits.

In a news release, jCyte CEO Dr. Shannon Blalock said the findings are really encouraging: “We look forward to working closely with our scientific advisory board and principal investigators to apply these key learnings to our upcoming pivotal study of jCell to optimize its probability of success in an effort to advance the clinical development program of our RMAT designated therapy for RP patients who currently have no treatment options.”

Building a progressive pipeline

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Dr. Kelly Shepard

By Dr. Kelly Shepard

One of our favorite things to do at CIRM is deliver exciting news about CIRM projects. This usually entails discussion of recent discoveries that made headlines, or announcing the launch of a new CIRM-funded clinical trial …. tangible signs of progress towards addressing unmet medical needs through advances in stem technology.

But there are equally exciting signs of progress that are not always so obvious to the untrained eye-  those that we are privileged to witness behind the scenes at CIRM. These efforts don’t always lead to a splashy news article or even to a scientific publication, but they nonetheless drive the evolution of new ideas and can help steer the field away from futile lines of investigation. Dozens of such projects are navigating uncharted waters by filling knowledge gaps, breaking down technical barriers, and working closely with regulatory agencies to define novel and safe paths to the clinic.

These efforts can remain “hidden” because they are in the intermediate stages of the long, arduous and expensive journey from “bench to beside”.  For the pioneering projects that CIRM funds, this journey is unique and untrod, and can be fraught with false starts. But CIRM has developed tools to track the momentum of these programs and provide continuous support for those with the most promise. In so doing, we have watched projects evolve as they wend their way to the clinic. We wanted to share a few examples of how we do this with our readers, but first… a little background for our friends who are unfamiliar with the nuts and bolts of inventing new medicines.

A common metaphor for bringing scientific discoveries to market is a pipeline, which begins in a laboratory where a discovery occurs, and ends with government approval to commercialize a new medicine, after it is proven to be safe and effective. In between discovery and approval is a stage called “Translation”, where investigators develop ways to transition their “research level” processes to “clinically compatible” ones, which only utilize substances that are of certified quality for human use. 

Investigators must also work out novel ways to manufacture the product at larger scale and transition the methods used for testing in animal models to those that can be implemented in human subjects.

A key milestone in Translation is the “preIND” (pre Investigational New Drug (IND) meeting, where an investigator presents data and plans to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for feedback before next stage of development begins, the pivotal testing needed to show it is both safe and effective.

These “IND enabling studies” are rigorous but necessary to support an application for an IND and the initiation of clinical trials, beginning with phase 1 to assess safety in a small number of individuals, and phase 2, where an expanded group is evaluated to see if the therapy has any benefits for the patient. Phase 3 trials are studies of very large numbers of individuals to gain definitive evidence of safety and therapeutic effect, generally the last step before applying to the FDA for market approval. An image of the pipeline and the stages described are provided in our diagram below.

The pipeline can be notoriously long and tricky, with plenty of twists, turns, and unexpected obstacles along the way. Many more projects enter than emerge from this gauntlet, but as we see from these examples of ‘works in progress”, there is a lot of momentum building.

Caption for Graphic: This graphic shows the number of CIRM-funded projects and the stages they have progressed through multiple rounds of CIRM funding. For example, the topmost arrow shows that are about 19 projects at the translational stage of the pipeline that received earlier support through one of CIRM’s Discovery stage programs. Many of these efforts came out of our pre-2016 funding initiatives such as Early Translation, Basic Biology and New Faculty Awards. In another example, you can see that about 15 awards that were first funded by CIRM at the IND enabling stage have since progressed into a phase 1 or phase 2 clinical trials. While most of these efforts also originated in some of CIRM’s pre-2016 initiatives such as the Disease Team Awards, others have already progressed from CIRM’s newer programs that were launched as part of the “2.0” overhaul in 2016 (CLIN1).

The number of CIRM projects that have evolved and made their way down the pipeline with CIRM support is impressive, but it is clearly an under-representation, as there are other projects that have progressed outside of CIRM’s purview, which can make things trickier to verify.

We also track projects that have spun off or been licensed to commercial organizations, another very exciting form of “progression”. Perhaps those will contribute to another blog for another day! In the meantime, here are a just a few examples of some of the progressors that are depicted on the graphic.

Project: stem cell therapy to enhance bone healing in the elderly

– Currently funded stage: IND enabling development, CLIN1-11256 (Dr. Zhu, Ankasa Regenerative Therapeutics)

– Preceded by preIND-enabling studies, TRAN1-09270 (Dr. Zhu, Ankasa Regenerative Therapeutics)

– Preceded by discovery stage research grant TR1-01249 (Dr. Longaker and Dr. Helm, Stanford)

Project: embryonic stem cell derived neural cell therapy for Huntington Disease

– Currently funded stage: IND enabling development, CLIN1-10953 (Dr. Thompson, UC Irvine)

– Preceded by preIND-enabling studies, PC1-08117 (Dr. Thompson, UC Irvine)

– Preceded by discovery stage research grant (TR2-01841) (Dr. Thompson, UC Irvine)

Project: gene-modified hematopoietic stem cells for Artemis Deficient severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID)

– Currently funded stage: Phase 1 clinical trial CLIN2-10830 (Dr. Cowan, UC San Francisco)

– Preceded by IND enabling development, CLIN1-08363 (Dr. Puck, UC San Francisco)

– Preceded by discovery stage research grant, TR3-05535  (Dr. Cowan, UC San Francisco)

Project: retinal progenitor cell therapy for retinitis pigmentosa

– Currently funded stage: Phase 2 and 2b clinical trials, CLIN2-11472, CLIN2-09698 (Dr. Klassen, JCyte, Inc.)

– Preceded by IND enabling development, DR2A-05739 (Dr. Klassen, UC Irvine)

– Preceded by discovery stage research grant, TR2-01794 (Dr. Klassen, UC Irvine)

Meet the people who are changing the future

/ Kevin McCormack / 2 Comments
Kristin MacDonald

Every so often you hear a story and your first reaction is “oh, I have to share this with someone, anyone, everyone.” That’s what happened to me the other day.

I was talking with Kristin MacDonald, an amazing woman, a fierce patient advocate and someone who took part in a CIRM-funded clinical trial to treat retinitis pigmentosa (RP). The disease had destroyed Kristin’s vision and she was hoping the therapy, pioneered by jCyte, would help her. Kristin, being a bit of a pioneer herself, was the first person to test the therapy in the U.S.

Anyway, Kristin was doing a Zoom presentation and wanted to look her best so she asked a friend to come over and do her hair and makeup. The woman she asked, was Rosie Barrero, another patient in that RP clinical trial. Not so very long ago Rosie was legally blind. Now, here she was helping do her friend’s hair and makeup. And doing it beautifully too.

That’s when you know the treatment works. At least for Rosie.

There are many other stories to be heard – from patients and patient advocates, from researchers who develop therapies to the doctors who deliver them. – at our CIRM 2020 Grantee Meeting on next Monday September 14th Tuesday & September 15th.

It’s two full days of presentations and discussions on everything from heart disease and cancer, to COVID-19, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and spina bifida. Here’s a link to the Eventbrite page where you can find out more about the event and also register to be part of it.

Like pretty much everything these days it’s a virtual event so you’ll be able to join in from the comfort of your kitchen, living room, even the backyard.

And it’s free!

You can join us for all two days or just one session on one day. The choice is yours. And feel free to tell your friends or anyone else you think might be interested.

We hope to see you there.

Encouraging news for treatment targeting retinitis pigmentosa

/ Kevin McCormack / 35 Comments

While most people probably wouldn’t put 2020 in their list of favorite years, it’s certainly turning out to be a good one for jCyte. Earlier this year jCyte entered into a partnership with global ophthalmology company Santen Pharmaceuticals worth up to $252 million. Then earlier this week they announced some encouraging results from their Phase 2b clinical trial.

Let’s back up a bit and explain what jCyte does and why it’s so important. They have developed a therapy for retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a rare vision destroying disease that attacks the light sensitive cells at the back of the eye. People are often diagnosed when they are in their teens and most are legally blind by middle age. CIRM has supported this therapy from its early stages into clinical trials.

This latest clinical trial is one of the largest of its kind anywhere in the world. They enrolled 84 patients (although only 74 were included in the final analysis). The patients had vision measuring between 20/80 and 20/800. They were split into three groups: one group was given a sham or placebo treatment; one was given three million human retinal progenitor cells (hRPCs), the kind attacked by the disease; and one was given six million hRPCs.

jCyte CEO Paul Bresge

In an article in Endpoints News, jCyte’s CEO Paul Bresge said there was a very specific reason for this approach. “We did enroll a very wide patient population into our Phase IIb, including patients that had vision anywhere from 20/80 to 20/800, just to learn which patients would potentially be the best responders.”

The results showed that the treatment group experienced improved functional vision and greater clarity of vision compared to the sham or placebo group. Everyone had their vision measured at the start and again 12 months later. For the placebo group the mean change in their ability to read an eye chart (with glasses on) was an improvement of 2.81 letters; for the group that got three million hRPCs it was 2.96 letters, and for the group that got six million hRPCs it was 7.43 letters.

When they looked at a very specific subgroup of patients the improvement was even more dramatic, with the six million cell group experiencing an improvement of 16.27 letters.

Dr. Henry Klassen

Dr. Henry Klassen, one of the founders of jCyte, says the therapy works by preserving the remaining photoreceptors in the eye, and helping them bounce back.

“Typically, people think about the disease as a narrowing of this peripheral vision in a very nice granular way, but that’s actually not what happens. What happens in the disease is that patients lose like islands of vision. So, what we’re doing in our tests is actually measuring […] islands that the patients have at baseline, and then what we’re seeing after treatment is that the islands are expanding. It’s similar to the way that one would track, let’s say a tumor, in oncology of course we’re looking for the opposite effect. We’re looking for the islands of vision to expand.”

One patient did experience some serious side effects in the trial but they responded well to treatment.

The team now plan on carrying out a Phase 3 clinical trial starting next year. They hope that will provide enough evidence showing the treatment is both safe and effective to enable them to get approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to make it available to all who need it.

A clear vision for the future

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment
Dr. Henry Klassen and Dr. Jing Yang, founders of jCyte

When you have worked with a group of people over many years the relationship becomes more than just a business venture, it becomes personal. That’s certainly the case with jCyte, a company founded by Drs. Henry Klassen and Jing Yang, aimed at finding a cure for a rare form of vision loss called retinitis pigmentosa. CIRM has been supporting this work since it’s early days and so on Friday, the news that jCyte has entered into a partnership with global ophthalmology company Santen was definitely a cause for celebration.

The partnership could be worth up to $252 million and includes an immediate payment of $62 million. The agreement also connects jCyte to Santen’s global business and medical network, something that could prove invaluable in bringing their jCell therapy to patients outside the US.

Here in the US, jCyte is getting ready to start a Phase 2 clinical trial – which CIRM is funding – that could prove pivotal in helping it get approval from the US Food and Drug Administration.

As Dr. Maria Millan, CIRM’s President and CEO says, we have been fortunate to watch this company steadily progress from having a promising idea to developing a life-changing therapy.

“This is exciting news for everyone at jCyte. They have worked so hard over many years to develop their therapy and this partnership is a reflection of just how much they have achieved. For us at CIRM it’s particularly encouraging. We have supported this work from its early stages through clinical trials. The people who have benefited from the therapy, people like Rosie Barrero, are not just patients to us, they have become friends. The people who run the company, Dr. Henry Klassen, Dr. Jing Yang and CEO Paul Bresge, are so committed and so passionate about their work that they have overcome many obstacles to bring them here, an RMAT designation from the Food and Drug Administration, and a deal that will help them advance their work even further and faster. That is what CIRM is about, following the science and the mission.”

Paul Bresge, jCyte’s CEO says they couldn’t have done it without CIRM’s early and continued investment.

Paul Bresge, jCyte CEO

“jCyte is extremely grateful to CIRM, which was established to support innovative regenerative medicine programs and research such as ours.  CIRM supported our early preclinical data all the way through our late stage clinical trials.  This critical funding gave us the unique ability and flexibility to put patients first in each and every decision that we made along the way. In addition to the funding, the guidance that we have received from the CIRM team has been invaluable. jCell would not be possible without the early support from CIRM, our team at jCyte, and patients with degenerative retinal diseases are extremely appreciative for your support.”

Here is Rosie Barrero talking about the impact jCell has had on her life and the life of her family.

The story behind the book about the Stem Cell Agency

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DonReed_BookSigning2018-35

Don Reed at his book launch: Photo by Todd Dubnicoff

WHY I WROTE “CALIFORNIA CURES”  By Don C. Reed

It was Wednesday, June 13th, 2018, the launch day for my new book, “CALIFORNIA CURES: How the California Stem Cell Research Program is Fighting Your Incurable Disease!”

As I stood in front of the audience of scientists, CIRM staff members, patient advocates, I thought to myself, “these are the kind of people who built the California stem cell program.” Wheelchair warriors Karen Miner and Susan Rotchy, sitting in the front row, typified the determination and resolve typical of those who fought to get the program off the ground. Now I was about to ask them to do it one more time.

My first book about CIRM was “STEM CELL BATTLES: Proposition 71 and Beyond. It told the story of  how we got started: the initial struggles—and a hopeful look into the future.

Imagine being in a boat on the open sea and there was a patch of green on the horizon. You could be reasonably certain those were the tops of coconut trees, and that there was an island attached—but all you could see was a patch of green.

Today we can see the island. We are not on shore yet, but it is real.

“CALIFORNIA CURES” shows what is real and achieved: the progress the scientists have made– and why we absolutely must continue.

For instance, in the third row were three little girls, their parents and grandparents.

One of them was Evangelina “Evie” Vaccaro, age 5. She was alive today because of CIRM, who had funded the research and the doctor who saved her.

Don Reed and Evie and Alysia

Don Reed, Alysia Vaccaro and daughter Evie: Photo by Yimy Villa

Evie was born with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID) commonly called the “bubble baby” disease. It meant she could never go outside because her immune system could not protect her.  Her mom and dad had to wear hospital masks to get near her, even just to give her a hug.

But Dr. Donald Kohn of UCLA operated on the tiny girl, taking out some of her bone marrow, repairing the genetic defect that caused SCID, then putting the bone marrow back.

Today, “Evie” glowed with health, and was cheerfully oblivious to the fuss she raised.

I was actually a little intimidated by her, this tiny girl who so embodied the hopes and dreams of millions. What a delight to hear her mother Alysia speak, explaining  how she helped Evie understand her situation:  she had “unicorn blood” which could help other little children feel better too.

This was CIRM in action, fighting to save lives and ease suffering.

If people really knew what is happening at CIRM, they would absolutely have to support it. That’s why I write, to get the message out in bite-size chunks.

You might know the federal statistics—133 million children, women and men with one or more chronic diseases—at a cost of $2.9 trillion dollars last year.

But not enough people know California’s battle to defeat those diseases.

DonReed_BookSigning2018-22

Adrienne Shapiro at the book launch: Photo by Todd Dubnicoff

Champion patient advocate Adrienne Shapiro was with us, sharing a little of the stress a parent feels if her child has sickle cell anemia, and the science which gives us hope:  the CIRM-funded doctor who cured Evie is working on sickle cell now.

Because of CIRM, newly paralyzed people now have a realistic chance to recover function: a stem cell therapy begun long ago (pride compels me to mention it was started by the Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Research Act, named after my son), is using stem cells to re-insulate damaged nerves in the spine.  Six people were recently given the stem cell treatment pioneered by Hans Keirstead, (currently running for Congress!)  and all six experienced some level of recovery, in a few cases regaining some use of their arms hands.

Are you old enough to remember the late Annette Funicello and Richard Pryor?  These great entertainers were stricken by multiple sclerosis, a slow paralysis.  A cure did not come in time for them. But the international cooperation between California’s Craig Wallace and Australia’s Claude Bernard may help others: by  re-insulating MS-damaged nerves like what was done with spinal cord injury.

My brother David shattered his leg in a motorcycle accident. He endured multiple operations, had steel rods and plates inserted into his leg. Tomorrow’s accident recovery may be easier.  At Cedars-Sinai, Drs. Dan Gazit and Hyun Bae are working to use stem cells to regrow the needed bone.

My wife suffers arthritis in her knees. Her pain is so great she tries to make only one trip a day down and up the stairs of our home.  The cushion of cartilage in her knees is worn out, so it is bone on bone—but what if that living cushion could be restored? Dr. Denis Evseenko of UCLA is attempting just that.

As I spoke, on the wall behind me was a picture of a beautiful woman, Rosie Barrero, who had been left blind by retinitis pigmentosa. Rosie lost her sight when her twin children were born—and regained it when they were teenagers—seeing them for the first time, thanks to Dr. Henry Klassen, another scientist funded by CIRM.

What about cancer? That miserable condition has killed several of my family, and I was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer myself. I had everything available– surgery, radiation, hormone shots which felt like harpoons—hopefully I am fine, but who knows for sure?

Irv Weissman, the friendly bear genius of Stanford, may have the answer to cancer.  He recognized there were cancer stem cells involved. Nobody believed him for a while, but it is now increasingly accepted that these cancer stem cells have a coating of protein which makes them invisible to the body’s defenses. The Weissman procedure may peel off that “cloak of invisibility” so the immune system can find and kill them all—and thereby cure their owner.

What will happen when CIRM’s funding runs out next year?

If we do nothing, the greatest source of stem cell research funding will be gone. We need to renew CIRM. Patients all around the world are depending on us.

The California stem cell program was begun and led by Robert N. “Bob” Klein. He not only led the campaign, was its chief writer and number one donor, but he was also the first Chair of the Board, serving without pay for the first six years. It was an incredible burden; he worked beyond exhaustion routinely.

Would he be willing to try it again, this time to renew the funding of a successful program? When I asked him, he said:

“If California polls support the continuing efforts of CIRM—then I am fully committed to a 2020 initiative to renew the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM).”

Shakespeare said it best in his famous “to be or not to be” speech, asking if it is “nobler …to endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles—and by opposing, end them”.

Should we passively endure chronic disease and disability—or fight for cures?

California’s answer was the stem cell program CIRM—and continuing CIRM is the reason I wrote this book.

Don C. Reed is the author of “CALIFORNIA CURES: How the California Stem Cell Program is Fighting Your Incurable Disease!”, from World Scientific Publishing, Inc., publisher of the late Professor Stephen Hawking.

For more information, visit the author’s website: www.stemcellbattles.com

 

jCyte Shares Encouraging Update on Clinical Trial for Retinitis Pigmentosa

/ Karen Ring / 3 Comments

Stepping out of the darkness into light. That’s how patients are describing their experience after participating in a CIRM-funded clinical trial targeting a rare form of vision loss called retinitis pigmentosa (RP). jCyte, the company conducting the trial, announced 12 month results for its candidate stem cell-based treatment for RP.

RP is a genetic disorder that affects approximately 1 in 40,000 individuals and 1.5 million people globally. It causes the destruction of the light-sensing cells at the back of the eye called photoreceptors. Patients experience symptoms of vision loss starting in their teenage years and eventually become legally blind by middle age. While there is no cure for RP, there is hope that stem cell-based therapies could slow its progression in patients.

Photoreceptors look healthy in a normal retina (left). Cells are damaged in the retina of an RP patient (right). (Source National Eye Institute)

jCyte is one of the leaders in developing cell-based therapies for RP. The company, which was founded by UC Irvine scientists led by Dr. Henry Klassen, is testing a product called jCell, which is composed of pluripotent stem cell-derived progenitor cells that develop into photoreceptors. When transplanted into the back of the eye, they are believed to release growth factors that prevent further damage to the surviving cells in the retina. They also can integrate into the patient’s retina and develop into new photoreceptor cells to improve a patient’s vision.

Positive Results

At the Annual Ophthalmology Innovation Summit in November, jCyte announced results from its Phase 1/2a trial, which was a 12-month study testing two different doses of transplanted cells in 28 patients. The company reported a “favorable safety profile and indications of potential benefit” to patient vision.

The patients received a single injection of cells in their worst eye and their visual acuity (how well they can see) was then compared between the treated and untreated eye. Patients who received the lower dose of 0.5 million cells were able to see one extra letter on an eye chart with their treated eye compared to their untreated eye while patients that received the larger dose of 3 million cells were able to read 9 more letters. Importantly, none of the patients experienced any significant side effects from the treatment.

According to the company’s news release, “patient feedback was particularly encouraging. Many reported improved vision, including increased sensitivity to light, improved color discrimination and reading ability and better mobility. In addition, 22 of the 28 patients have been treated in their other eye as part of a follow-on extension study.”

One of these patients is Rosie Barrero. She spoke to us earlier this year about how the jCyte trial has not only improved her vision but has also given her hope. You can watch her video below.

Next Steps

These results suggest that the jCell therapy is safe (at least at the one year mark) to use in patients and that larger doses of jCell are more effective at improving vision in patients. jCyte CEO, Paul Bresge commented on the trial’s positive results:

Paul Bresge

“We are very encouraged by these results. Currently, there are no effective therapies to offer patients with RP. We are moving forward as quickly as possible to remedy that. The feedback we’ve received from trial participants has been remarkable. We look forward to moving through the regulatory process and bringing this easily-administered potential therapy to patients worldwide.”

Bresge and his company will be able to navigate jCell through the regulatory process more smoothly with the product’s recent Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) designation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA grants RMAT to regenerative medicine therapies for serious diseases that have shown promise in early-stage clinical trials. The designation allows therapies to receive expedited review as they navigate their way towards commercialization.

jCyte is now evaluating the safety and efficacy of jCell in a Phase2b trial in a larger group of up to 85 patients. CIRM is also funding this trial and you can read more about it on our website.

Related Links:

 

jCyte gets FDA go-ahead for Fast Track review process of Retinitis Pigmentosa stem cell therapy

/ Kevin McCormack / 6 Comments

21 century cures

When the US Congress approved, and President Obama signed into law, the 21st Century Cures Act last year there was guarded optimism that this would help create a more efficient and streamlined, but no less safe, approval process for the most promising stem cell therapies.

Even so many people took a wait and see approach, wanting a sign that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would follow the recommendations of the Act rather than just pay lip service to it.

This week we saw encouraging signs that the FDA is serious when it granted Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) status to the CIRM-funded jCyte clinical trial for a rare form of blindness. This is a big deal because RMAT seeks to accelerate approval for stem cell therapies that demonstrate they can help patients with unmet medical needs.

klassen

jCyte co-founder Dr. Henry Klassen

jCyte’s work is targeting retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a genetic disease that slowly destroys the cells in the retina, the part of the eye that converts light into electrical signals which the brain then interprets as vision. At first people with RP lose their night and peripheral vision, then the cells that help us see faces and distinguish colors are damaged. RP usually strikes people in their teens and, by the time they are 40, many people are legally blind.

jCyte’s jCell therapy uses what are called retinal progenitor cells, injected into the eye, which then release protective factors to help repair and rescue diseased retinal cells. The hope is this will stop the disease’s progression and even restore some vision to people with RP.

Dr. Henry Klassen, jCyte’s co-founder and a professor at UC Irvine, was understandably delighted by the designation. In a news release, he said:

“This is uplifting news for patients with RP. At this point, there are no therapies that can help them avoid blindness. We look forward to working with the FDA to speed up the clinical development of jCell.”

FDA

On the FDA’s blog – yes they do have one – it says researchers:

“May obtain the RMAT designation for their drug product if the drug is intended to treat serious or life-threatening diseases or conditions and if there is preliminary clinical evidence indicating that the drug has the potential to address unmet medical needs for that disease or condition. Sponsors of RMAT-designated products are eligible for increased and earlier interactions with the FDA, similar to those interactions available to sponsors of breakthrough-designated therapies. In addition, they may be eligible for priority review and accelerated approval.”

Paul Bresge

jCyte CEO Paul Bresge

jCyte is one of the first to get this designation, a clear testimony to the quality of the work done by Dr. Klassen and his team. jCyte CEO Paul Bresge says it may help speed up their ability to get this treatment to patients.

 

“We are gratified by the FDA’s interest in the therapeutic potential of jCell and greatly appreciate their decision to provide extra support. We are seeing a lot of momentum with this therapy. Because it is well-tolerated and easy to administer, progress has been rapid. I feel a growing sense of excitement among patients and clinicians. We look forward to getting this critical therapy over the finish line as quickly as possible.”

Regular readers of this blog will already be familiar with the story of Rosie Barrero, one of the first group of people with RP who got the jCell therapy. Rosie says it has helped restore some vision to the point where she is now able to read notes she wrote ten years ago, distinguish colors and, best of all, see the faces of her children.

RMAT is no guarantee the therapy will be successful. But if the treatment continues to show promise, and is safe, it could mean faster access to a potentially life-changing therapy, one that could ultimately rescue many people from a lifetime of living in the dark.

 

 

jCyte starts second phase of stem cell clinical trial targeting vision loss

/ Kevin McCormack / Leave a comment

retinitis pigmentosas_1

How retinitis pigmentosa destroys vision

Studies show that Americans fear losing their vision more than any other sense, such as hearing or speech, and almost as much as they fear cancer, Alzheimer’s and HIV/AIDS. That’s not too surprising. Our eyes are our connection to the world around us. Sever that connection, and the world is a very different place.

For people with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), the leading cause of inherited blindness in the world, that connection is slowly destroyed over many years. The disease eats away at the cells in the eye that sense light, so the world of people with RP steadily becomes darker and darker, until the light goes out completely. It often strikes people in their teens, and many are blind by the time they are 40.

There are no treatments. No cures. At least not yet. But now there is a glimmer of hope as a new clinical trial using stem cells – and funded by CIRM – gets underway.

klassenWe have talked about this project before. It’s run by UC Irvine’s Dr. Henry Klassen and his team at jCyte. In the first phase of their clinical trial they tested their treatment on a small group of patients with RP, to try and ensure that their approach was safe. It was. But it was a lot more than that. For people like Rosie Barrero, the treatment seems to have helped restore some of their vision. You can hear Rosie talk about that in our recent video.

Now the same treatment that helped Rosie, is going to be tested in a much larger group of people, as jCyte starts recruiting 70 patients for this new study.

In a news release announcing the start of the Phase 2 trial, Henry Klassen said this was an exciting moment:

“We are encouraged by the therapy’s excellent safety track record in early trials and hope to build on those results. Right now, there are no effective treatments for retinitis pigmentosa. People must find ways to adapt to their vision loss. With CIRM’s support, we hope to change that.”

The treatment involves using retinal progenitor cells, the kind destroyed by the disease. These are injected into the back of the eye where they release factors which the researchers hope will help rescue some of the diseased cells and regenerate some replacement ones.

Paul Bresge, CEO of jCyte, says one of the lovely things about this approach, is its simplicity:

“Because no surgery is required, the therapy can be easily administered. The entire procedure takes minutes.”

Not everyone will get the retinal progenitor cells, at least not to begin with. One group of patients will get an injection of the cells into their worst-sighted eye. The other group will get a sham injection with no cells. This will allow researchers to compare the two groups and determine if any improvements in vision are due to the treatment or a placebo effect.

The good news is that after one year of follow-up, the group that got the sham injection will also be able to get an injection of the real cells, so that if the therapy is effective they too may be able to benefit from it.

Rosie BarreroWhen we talked to Rosie Barrero about the impact the treatment had on her, she said it was like watching the world slowly come into focus after years of not being able to see anything.

“My dream was to see my kids. I always saw them with my heart, but now I can see them with my eyes. Seeing their faces, it’s truly a miracle.”

We are hoping this Phase 2 clinical trial gives others a chance to experience similar miracles.

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Three people left blind by Florida clinic’s unproven stem cell therapy

/ Kevin McCormack / 8 Comments

Unproven treatment

Unproven stem cell treatments endanger patients: Photo courtesy Healthline

The report makes for chilling reading. Three women, all suffering from macular degeneration – the leading cause of vision loss in the US – went to a Florida clinic hoping that a stem cell therapy would save their eyesight. Instead, it caused all three to go blind.

The study, in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, is a warning to all patients about the dangers of getting unproven, unapproved stem cell therapies.

In this case, the clinic took fat and blood from the patient, put the samples through a centrifuge to concentrate the stem cells, mixed them together and then injected them into the back of the woman’s eyes. In each case they injected this mixture into both eyes.

Irreparable harm

Within days the women, who ranged in age from 72 to 88, began to experience severe side effects including bleeding in the eye, detached retinas, and vision loss. The women got expert treatment at specialist eye centers to try and undo the damage done by the clinic, but it was too late. They are now blind with little hope for regaining their eyesight.

In a news release Thomas Alibini, one of the lead authors of the study, says clinics like this prey on vulnerable people:

“There’s a lot of hope for stem cells, and these types of clinics appeal to patients desperate for care who hope that stem cells are going to be the answer, but in this case these women participated in a clinical enterprise that was off-the-charts dangerous.”

Warning signs

So what went wrong? The researchers say this clinic’s approach raised a number of “red flags”:

  • First there is almost no evidence that the fat/blood stem cell combination the clinic used could help repair the photoreceptor cells in the eye that are attacked in macular degeneration.
  • The clinic charged the women $5,000 for the procedure. Usually in FDA-approved trials the clinical trial sponsor will cover the cost of the therapy being tested.
  • Both eyes were injected at the same time. Most clinical trials would only treat one eye at a time and allow up to 30 days between patients to ensure the approach was safe.
  • Even though the treatment was listed on the clinicaltrials.gov website there is no evidence that this was part of a clinical trial, and certainly not one approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which regulates stem cell therapies.

As CIRM’s Abla Creasey told the San Francisco Chronicle’s Erin Allday, there is little evidence these fat stem cells are effective, or even safe, for eye conditions.

“There’s no doubt there are some stem cells in fat. As to whether they are the right cells to be put into the eye, that’s a different question. The misuse of stem cells in the wrong locations, using the wrong stem cells, is going to lead to bad outcomes.”

The study points out that not all projects listed on the Clinicaltrials.gov site are checked to make sure they are scientifically sound and have done the preclinical testing needed to reduce the likelihood they may endanger patients.

goldberg-jeffrey

Jeffrey Goldberg

Jeffrey Goldberg, a professor of Ophthalmology at Stanford and the co-author of the study, says this is a warning to all patients considering unproven stem cell therapies:

“There is a lot of very well-founded evidence for the positive potential of stem therapy for many human diseases, but there’s no excuse for not designing a trial properly and basing it on preclinical research.”

There are a number of resources available to people considering being part of a clinical trial including CIRM’s “So You Want to Participate in a Clinical Trial”  and the  website A Closer Look at Stem Cells , which is sponsored by the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR).

CIRM is currently funding two clinical trials aimed at helping people with vision loss. One is Dr. Mark Humayun’s research on macular degeneration – the same disease these women had – and the other is Dr. Henry Klassen’s research into retinitis pigmentosa. Both these projects have been approved by the FDA showing they have done all the testing required to try and ensure they are safe in people.

In the past this blog has been a vocal critic of the FDA and the lengthy and cumbersome approval process for stem cell clinical trials. We have, and still do, advocate for a more efficient process. But this study is a powerful reminder that we need safeguards to protect patients, that any therapy being tested in people needs to have undergone rigorous testing to reduce the likelihood it may endanger them.

These three women paid $5,000 for their treatment. But the final cost was far greater. We never want to see that happen to anyone ever again.