Pluristem Pioneering Intramuscular Placenta-Based Cell Therapies
July 3, 2012 | 2 comments | about: PSTI
seekingalpha.com
After two unsuccessful bone marrow transplants, a seven-year girl from Romania, suffering from a type of bone marrow failure and facing certain death, appears to be on the road to recovery after receiving in May two intramuscular injections of 80 million PLacental eXpanded ("PLX") cells developed by Pluristem Therapeutics ( PSTI) of Israel.
"This was a compassionate request from her doctor at Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem," chairman and CEO Zami Aberman says in an interview with BioTuesdays.com.
"She has experienced a reversal of her condition, with a significant increase in her red and white blood cells, and platelets," he adds. "For now, we have saved her life. She has been released from hospital and is back at home with her parents."
The life-saving treatment is an outgrowth of Pluristem's burgeoning pipeline of placenta-based cell therapies. Specifically, it stems from animal studies, suggesting that PLX cells can be potentially effective in treating life threatening complications of blood cell destruction associated with acute radiation syndrome ("ARS"). In these experiments, animals given PLX cells intramuscularly up to 24 hours after irradiation demonstrated a recovery of their red and white cells, platelets and bone marrow to almost normal levels.
Mr. Aberman says the ARS results, and the significant deterioration of the patient following two bone marrow transplants, led her doctor to contact Pluristem about the possible compassionate use of PLX cells to treat his young patient.
(click to enlarge) 
Pluristem's PLX cells are grown from full-term, donated placentas (about 10,000 patients can be treated from a single placenta) in the company's proprietary bioreactor system, which features a "three-dimensional micro-environment that enables full control over the manufacturing process," he points out. This results in an "off-the-shelf" product that requires no tissue matching or immune-suppression treatment prior to being administered.
Continues... |
