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Immunotherapy: using the body’s own defences to heal – Raconteur

By adminOctober 19, 2019Uncategorized

Immunotherapy for cancer treatment made headlines when clinical trials showed that over half of patients with late-stage melanoma given a combination of these innovative drugs survived for five years. A decade ago only one in twenty survived that long.

Professor James Larkin, consultant medical oncologist specialising in melanoma and kidney cancer at Londons Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, led the trial. He explains that in 52 per cent of patients who received a combination of two immunotherapy drugs, ipilimumab and nivolumab, tumours shrank.

Immunotherapy research has attracted huge investment from pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions in the last five to ten years, but we need more understanding of how it works. Numerous trials are underway and immunotherapy will continue to be a major area of research, he says.

The same combination of drugs can also be used against non-small-cell lung cancer, kidney cancer, bladder cancer, head and neck cancers, and Hodgkin lymphoma.

Professor Larkin says: I expect the five-year survival rate of kidney cancer patients given this combination to be greater than that of patients before these treatments became available.

Immunotherapy cancer treatments began in the UK in 2003, when the drug rituximab was licensed for use in B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system. But now CAR T-cell therapy, which uses the bodys own immune system to recognise and attach to cancer cells, has made a leap forward.

This has meant exciting developments in treating aggressive advanced B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, says Dr Adam Gibb, clinical research fellow in lymphoma at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, and honorary member of the Institute of Cancer Sciences.

CAR T-cell therapy causes the lymphoma to shrink in about two thirds of cases and in a third of patients the cancer has not progressed five years later. They are effectively cured, says Dr Gibb. But more work is needed if we are to save more than one in three lives.

A new drug, which secured official US backing last year and has now gained National Institute for Health and Care Excellence approval for suitable lymphoma patients in some parts of the UK, is polatuzumab vedotin, consisting of an antibody joined to a chemotherapy drug. It is a targeted agent that kills cancer cells from the inside, explains Dr Gibb. It can put patients into remission when there are few treatment options left.

Immunotherapy drug combinations are showing good results in tackling some kinds of advanced cancers, but what about early-stage cancers? Professor Paul Lorigan, medical oncologist specialising in melanoma at The Christie, explains: Initially these combinations were evaluated in people with advanced cancers particularly responsive to immunotherapy, such as melanoma, kidney and lung cancer, but because immunotherapy works better where there is only a small amount of cancer, it is being evaluated in earlier-stage disease and is already used in the NHS to treat earlier-stage melanoma after surgery.

We can see that in patients with early-stage melanoma, adding immunotherapy to surgery to remove the tumour and lymph glands reduces the risk of recurrence by 40 to 50 per cent.

A trial to establish when this surgery-immunotherapy combination can be most effective starts soon. Using it on all early-stage patients risks delivering unnecessary, toxic and expensive treatment, says Professor Lorigan. The trial will test the use of a very sensitive blood biomarker to detect if the cancer is recurring and these patients will be treated straightaway.

Vaccines are showing huge promise, used in combination with other forms of immunotherapy. There is exciting work underway on bespoke vaccines created using cells picked up from the patients own tumour. Early-stage trials are underway now in using this for treating melanoma and lung cancer.

Meanwhile, research has begun into the potential benefits of combining radiation therapy with immunotherapy for cancer treatment.

Also known as biologic therapy, immunotherapy uses the body's immune system to fight cancer. Cancer cells suppress the immune system, so immunotherapy aims to re-empower it, allowing immune cells to find and kill cancer cells. Types of treatment include:

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Immunotherapy: using the body's own defences to heal - Raconteur

CAR-T at a crossroad as industry looks to allogeneic – Bioprocess Insider – BioProcess Insider

By adminOctober 19, 2019Uncategorized

As cell therapies move through the clinic towards commercialization, respondents to a KNect365 industry survey are beginning to look to allogeneic or off-the-shelf products as the next big thing.

Almost 200 people contributed to the Cell Therapy Analytics Report from KNect365, revealing their current position within the burgeoning cell and gene therapy space and offering up their thoughts and predictions for the future.

The majority worked within companies developing oncology products, and the largest group 41% said they are specifically developing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies. This developmental divulgence reflects the regulatory successes of Novartis Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) and Kite/Gileads Yescarta (axicabtagene ciloleucel), both of which shook the drug world when approved in 2017.

Image: iStock/megatronservizi

Both Kymriah and Yescarta are made using a patients own cells, which are genetically engineered and then reinserted into the patient. These autologous products require intricate manufacturing processes and a complex logistics network, leading to a very high cost of production and, naturally, a very large price tag. The two therapies have been listed at$373,000 and $475,000, respectively.

When asked where the next big success and/or approval will lie in the cell and gene therapy industry, 47% ticked the gene therapy box. This may be slightly misleading as several gene therapies have already been commercialized, the latest being AveXis/Novartis Zolgensma (onasemnogene abeparvovec) priced at $2.1 million, and while we are still in the early days of the industry.

A quarter checked Solid Tumor treatment, which makes more sense as the CAR-Ts available and about to breakthrough are all focusing blood cancers.

But more interesting is the written responses, with several stating allogeneic immunotherapies will be the next big thing in cell therapies.

Much talk has been on reducing the cost of goods for CAR-T therapies using technologies around automation and analytic, but the prospect of an allogeneic or off-the-shelf CAR-T would alter the COGS concern with cell therapies. Large batch manufacturing will play into economies of scale, and with technologies available and well-established in the antibody industry, allogeneic therapies could recalibrate the sector back to a COGS model more appealing to healthcare providers and patients.

Companies have begun to focus on allogeneic CAR-Ts; Gilead/Kite has expressed its intentions to submit an Investigational New Drug (IND) request for an off-the-shelf product before the end of the year. And Allogene, with Pfizer backing, has already begun constructing a manufacturing facility for its allogeneic pipeline.

Download the full report here.

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CAR-T at a crossroad as industry looks to allogeneic - Bioprocess Insider - BioProcess Insider

Sanofi investing in gene therapy as R&D focus turns toward rare disease – BioPharma Dive

By adminOctober 19, 2019Uncategorized

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Sanofi is accelerating nascent efforts in gene therapy, aiming to use its expertise in vaccines to catch up in a competitive field that's well ahead of the French pharma.

The company has prioritized gene therapy programs amid a broader effort to boost internal R&D speed and impact, said John Reed, Sanofi's head of research and development, in a Wednesday interview at Sanofi's Cambridge office.

"When I joined, I saw that we were dabbling in gene therapy and decided that we need to get more serious about gene therapy if we are going to continue to be impactful in that space," said Reed, who came over to Sanofi from Roche last July.

In particular, the company is retrofitting one of its vaccine facilities near Lyon, France, to produce GMP-grade adeno-associated viral vectors, or AAVs. Reed said he expects the plant to be operational in about a year.

The new R&D chief is steering the company away from areas for which it's historically been known, including, most notably, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Sanofi is largely exiting cardiovascular R&D and is cutting spending in half on diabetes R&D, Reed said.

While vaccines make up a comparatively smaller portion of Sanofi's revenues, Reed noted the company's decades-long expertise in producing inactivated viruses could translate well to gene therapy. Reed was recently in Lyon to discuss the budget and headcount requirements for the change, he said.

"We have an opportunity to really leverage those competencies around vaccines for the gene therapy area," Reed said. "We are looking at how we can use that as a competitive advantage to be players in that space."

Several of Sanofi's pharma peers have bet heavily on gene therapy, investing in manufacturing and snapping up biotech leaders through multi-billion dollar acquisitions, such as by Novartis for AveXis and Roche for Spark Therapeutics.

Smaller companies like BioMarin Pharmaceutical, meanwhile, hold sizable leads in therapeutic areas that Sanofi hopes to play a larger role in, like hemophilia.

Reed acknowledged an acquisition "could be an accelerator" in establishing Sanofi's presence in cell and gene therapy.

"We flirt with those things all the time," he said, when asked about his openness to a deal like those for AveXis and Spark. "It's a bit challenging to point your finger at any one gene therapy company and say that solves all our problems."

"It's been really tough to pull the trigger on something like that," he added. "In the interim, we've been establishing the capabilities more internally."

How much it would be willing to pay, or afford, is another question. Under former CEO Olivier Brandicourt, the company last year targeted roughly 20 billion euros in acquisitions, a budget largely consumed by deals for Bioverativ and Ablynx in the blood disease space.

The company's first AAV-delivered gene therapy recently entered the clinic for a form of a rare eye disease called Leber congenital amaurosis, Reed added.

Two gene-edited cell therapies are in Phase 1/2 testing via a collaboration with Sangamo Therapeutics. Other programs remain preclinical as the group works on establishing GMP manufacturing capabilities.

All of this is taking place against a backdrop of change for Sanofi research and development teams.

Reed is working to narrow the company's focus to advance only first- or potentially best-in-class therapies, a bar that led Sanofi to cut several dozen programs from its pipeline earlier this year.

Reed has also restructured employee's incentives, taking away bonuses for starting projects and replacing them with an emphasis on starting first-in-human studies, a milestone Sanofi usually reaches slower than industry leaders.

"I don't want to reward people for starting projects, I want to reward them for finishing projects," he said. "We have too many projects."

Part of that's involved reducing bureaucracy and streamlining decision-making, moving from 33 committees that interact with R&D teams to three. Reed's given decision-making authority to team leaders for each molecule, calling them CEOs of their drug candidate.

Even before Reed came on board, productivity had begun to improve from a nadir in 2014, when Sanofi's entire organization produced only two clinical candidates that year. Now, Sanofi is delivering about six per year and, with the 2018 acquisitions of Bioverativ and Ablynx, should reach eight or nine per year.

Still, of the last 10 drugs Sanofi has won approvals for, only one was an internal project, Reed said. For the company's next 10 assets, Reed expects six or seven to have been internally developed.

As Reed re-focuses, Sanofi has exited or restructured partnerships this year with Regeneron, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Lexicon Pharmaceuticals.

Paring down the pipeline and restructuring deals also speaks to Sanofi's R&D budget, which the company expects to keep flat for the next few years. The pharma spends about half what companies with larger revenues like Pfizer, Novartis and Roche do.

Reed says the ultimate goal is to bring about 12 programs into clinical development each year, and growing internal R&D to the point where it's responsible for the majority of those candidates progressing.

"With the resources we have, that would be industry competitive," he added.

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Sanofi investing in gene therapy as R&D focus turns toward rare disease - BioPharma Dive

Merck KGaA opens Shanghai Innovation Center and invests $ 14 million in the China Seed Fund – asume tech

By adminOctober 19, 2019Embryonic Stem Cells

One of the largest German pharmaceutical companies sets up a seed capital fund to promote start-ups in China.

Darmstadt-based Merck KGaA announced on Friday that it had a seed capital fund worth 100 million Chinese yuan, or 14.1 million dollars, under the umbrella of its $ 334.2 million venture capital arm M Ventures has set up. Merck KGaA operates in the United States under the name of EMD Serono to avoid confusion with New Jersey-based Whitehouse Station Merck & Co., which trades outside of North America under the name of MSD.

In addition to founding the Seed Fund, Merck KGaA has opened an Innovation Center in Shanghai and is planning another one in the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, which will open next month.

"Our 100 million RMB China Seed Fund underlines our commitment to invest in the Chinese market," said CEO Stefan Oschmann at the opening of the Shanghai Center, citing the abbreviation for Renminbi, the official name of the Chinese currency. "Our innovation centers in China will accelerate our innovation development across the country."

Biotechnology and pharmaceuticals are top priorities in the Chinese government's industrial development strategy. Numerous drug manufacturers operate in the country and are expanding abroad to Western countries.

In January, Beijing-based BeiGene of the Food and Drug Administration received groundbreaking approval for the treatment of zanubrutinib, a Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitor, which is being developed for the treatment of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. ibrutinib) and AstraZeneca's Calquence (acalabrutinib). The company partnered with Summit, Celgene, New Jersey, to develop its PD-1 inhibitor tislelizumab, although the company regained rights to the drug in June, as Celgene acquired the company from Bristol-Myers Squibb, that has its own PD-1 inhibitor, opdivo (nivolumab).

Merck KGaA announced that its Shanghai hub, which was founded last year, will occupy a place in the city's New Bund World Trade Center. Partnerships have already been established, not only in the areas the company specializes in, but also in the areas of artificial intelligence for health solutions. To date, six startups from China and other Asian countries have participated in its Accelerator program.

Photo: VCG, Getty Images

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Syros sees strategic shift after the failure of the previously promising cancer drug – asume tech

By adminOctober 19, 2019Embryonic Stem Cells

A biotech company developing drugs to treat cancer by controlling gene expression is shifting its focus to the failure of a drug that has been tested in patients with solid tumors.

Syros of Cambridge, Massachusetts, said Thursday that data from the extension of his phase I trial of SY-1365, an intravenous CDK7 inhibitor, did not show that a patient had achieved an objective response to treatment. The best response was a stable disease in 13 out of 31 patients whose efficacy could be assessed, meaning that their tumors did not continue to grow, but did not contract. The study enrolled patients with breast cancer, ovarian cancer and advanced solid tumors enrolled in single drug and combination cohorts.

The shares of Syros gave after the news against the Nasdaq by 32.3 percent.

The company has therefore decided to shift its focus from SY-1365 to another drug, the oral CDK7 inhibitor SY-5609, which more selectively and effectively inhibits CDK7 than SY-1365, and has shown stronger antitumor activity in preclinical tests. The Company plans to discontinue the development of SY-1365 and initiate a Phase I trial of SY-5609 in the first quarter of 2020.

Patients in the single drug expansion cohorts received SY-1365 initially twice weekly at 80 mg per square meter of body area, while patients in the combination cohorts received it once weekly at 53 mg per square meter. Adverse reactions believed to be related to intravenous administration including headache, nausea and vomiting prompted the company to investigate extended cohort infusion times and lower doses in the single-agent cohorts.

However, Syros believes that more frequent dosing or a higher dose, which would prolong the infusion time to improve the tolerability of the drug, would be needed to maintain the CDK7 targeting required for sufficient clinical activity both would be the case to a dosing schedule that is overly stressful for patients. SY-5609 can solve this dilemma better, the company said.

The lack of objective answers in the study suggests that dose reductions and longer infusion times could affect efficacy, Cowen analyst Phil Nadeau said in a statement to investors on Thursday. The news was disappointing as the preclinical data and Phase I dose-response data suggested that SY-1365 would be more effective and safer.

Photo: Jane1, Getty Images

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Syros sees strategic shift after the failure of the previously promising cancer drug - asume tech

Health policy will be the focus of the HLTH – asume tech

By adminOctober 19, 2019Embryonic Stem Cells

In the second year HLTH Conference From 27 to 30 October at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, health policy will be the focus of a series of discussions discussing fundamental health challenges. Discussions include the drug pricing debate, which balances regulatory needs for health technology with drug development and innovation. and the proper role of the government in health care.

On the morning of October 29th Dr. Amy AbernethyThe Deputy Chief Commissioner of the FDA will explain her view on technology, innovation, the medical ecosystem, and how this fits in with the regulatory approach of the FDA. Later that day, he was CEO of US International Development Financial Corp. Adam Boehler teamed up with the A Healthy Dose Podcast by Stephen Kraus, a health partner of Bessemer Venture Partners and Trevor PriceFounder and CEO of Oxeon Partners to provide insights into entrepreneurship, investment, government policy, Medicaid & Medicare and more.

On Wednesday, October 30, Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Eric Hargan discusses value-based care initiatives. Joe Grogan, Director of the National Policy Council, will give an insight into the Trump Administration's mission to give Americans more options and more control over their health. senator Michael Bennet, a presidential candidate will work out his plan for universal health insurance.

Deputy Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Tomas Philipson and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Administrator Seema Verma Philipson will address the role of the government in two separate talks on Sunday, October 28. Philipson will focus on pricing for prescription drugs and the role of government policy in improving patient access to medicines and reducing healthcare costs. Verma will talk about what role the government can play in combating dissatisfaction with the current health care system.

For the first time ever, MedCity News and HLTH have teamed to unveil MedCity's annual ENGAGE patient engagement event at the HLTH conference on October 28. ENGAGE at HLTH will examine how technology, vendors, and payers affect the patient experience and, most importantly, the patient's perspective on healthcare.

Photo: Bill Oxford, Getty Images

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Health policy will be the focus of the HLTH - asume tech

What Theranos Whistleblowers Learn About Ethics in Health Startups – asume tech

By adminOctober 19, 2019Embryonic Stem Cells

Erika Cheung and Tyler Shultz were the whistleblowers who helped expose the corruption in Theranos. They spoke at the Manova Summit in Minneapolis this week.

The Whistleblowers of Theranos, Erika Cheung and Tyler Shultz, shared some lessons from working in a culture of fear and secrecy at the Manova Global Summit on the Future of Health in Minneapolis.

"There were words we could not say at Theranos, like 'biology', 'pipette', 'research'," "recalled Shultz." And we should not talk to other people at Theranos about what you did. "

Even so, the two had no other career experience, so it took awhile for the red flags to add up, Cheung said.

Now that the former Theranos leadership is waiting for a test in 2020, Cheung and Shultz have formed an organization they call Ethics in Entrepreneurship, hoping to prevent other technology and health startups and associates from doing so do what they did.

"We're all here because we want to make a difference and we want to do good and we have good intentions, but making sure you have that strong vision and figuring out how to sustain that is a challenge," Cheung said. "You have to figure out how to stick to these morals, standards and values despite the chaos."

Although they do not yet have all the answers at the moment, they pointed to some basics that can be applied to just about any business:

In Silicon Valley, so-called vanity boards are popular, Cheung agreed, but just in a heavily regulated area like healthcare, "you need the right people to ask the right questions."

Although Shultz spent most of his 20s in the Theranos scandal, he remains optimistic.

"So many things have gone wrong (in the case of Theranos) that I think it's unlikely to happen again," he said. "Although I may be naive."

Abbe's presenter Rebecca Jarvis asked the two of them if they felt Theranos's former director, Elizabeth Holmes, was going to jail.

"There has to be some justice," Cheung said to the audience with great applause. "It must."

Photo: Andrew McGee, Manova

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What Theranos Whistleblowers Learn About Ethics in Health Startups - asume tech

Selma Blair Went Through Chemotherapy for MS Treatment and Was Told to Make Plans for Death – Parade

By adminOctober 19, 2019Stem Cell Doctors

For the first time, Selma Blair is opening up about receiving one of the most aggressive and almost barbaric treatments in medicine for her multiple sclerosis diagnosis. Blair received a stem cell transplant but has avoided talking about it until sitting down with doctors Mehmet Oz and David Angus for TIME 100s health summit this week.

I havent talked about it much yet because I wanted to show everyone that the proof is in the pudding, but my pudding is still kind of scrambled. I dont want to scare people away, she said.

A stem cell transplant, which Dr. Angus described as aggressive and barbaric, is aggressive chemotherapy to sort of reset your immune system, he explained onstage. On top of dealing with MS symptoms, we hammer the hell out of you with a drug, he said.

Related:Selma Blair Talks About Battling MS: My Disease Isnt a Tragedy

Before, she was suffering from extreme symptoms like the inability to use one of her legs. The disease modifiers did not work for me at the time, and I was really declining more rapidly than I found acceptable, Blair, 47, said.

She was encouraged to try a stem cell transplant but she was wary. I had no intention of doing it, I was like, Im not ruining my body, whats left of it. Why would I put this horrible drug in it? Chemotherapy? I dont have cancer, she said. But I was kind of out of options and I was looking.

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She did agree to a micro dose of chemo, though, and immediately felt some relief. It made her think, maybe I just have too much junk in there, and that killed some junk. What do I care if it kills my whole body, because my whole body is just one macrophage of yuck.

So, she did it, but there were no guarantees this would work, instead, she said, I was warned. You kind of make your plans for death, [and] I told my son I was doing this and he said he wanted me cremated. Im here though! We dont have to worry about that!

But it was a little hard. I had a great support system, she continued. She explained that she had more chemo than cancer patients typically receive, because the aim is to kinda kill you. And its the stem cell that allow you to live with the amount of chemo. The chemo is the MS cure, if in fact it does that. But luckily, although she did have some complications, the Cruel Intentions star felt that it went pretty well.

Related:Parade Rewind with Jack Osbourne: Fatherhood,DWTS, and Living Well with Multiple Sclerosis

While shes still recovering, shes feeling pretty good. She has her cane and her bike, both of which she relies on heavily. One thing she doesnt have is her hair, but that doesnt really bother her.

That was a small thing, I never minded hair loss or any of the things that would be ego-involved, she said. My dream is to lie next to my son at night and be there as long as he needs me. And hopefully do something for people, because Ive heard so much from people with chronic diseases or MS, theyre scared. And they dont know when its gonna get worse, and I didnt know anything about it.

She knows more now, and its safe to say shes already made a major impact with that knowledge.

Do you have a friend suffering from a disease?Find out howyou can support them.

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Selma Blair Went Through Chemotherapy for MS Treatment and Was Told to Make Plans for Death - Parade

How Young India is fuelling the future of stem cell therapy and signing up to save lives – YourStory

By adminOctober 19, 2019Stem Cell Doctors

Eighteen-year-old Aisha Choudhary was just like any other adolescent eyes filled with dreams and a heart brimming with energy. The only difference was she was battling a rare genetic disease, Severe Combined Immune Deficiency (SCID). Diagnosed when she was six months old and undergoing medical treatment for years, she was iron-willed in playing the cards she was dealt.

Since one of the most effective cures for SCID is a stem cell transplant (grafting of the parent cells from which all blood cells develop), Aishas parents, Niren and Aditi, decided to opt for that treatment mode. But their cells were not a complete match with their daughters, and they had to look at external donors. However, due to a low number of voluntary, registered stem cell donors, Aisha could not get a compatible donor whose genetic markers were a close enough match to hers. With no other alternative treatment available, Aisha had a bone marrow transplant. But, it came with a side-effect that cost her life Pulmonary Fibrosis, a disease known to damage the lung tissues.

Aishas Choudhary's role has been played by Zaira Wasim in The Sky is Pink.

Aishas journey has been captured in The Sky is Pink, a recent Bollywood movie starring Priyanka Chopra, Farhan Akhtar, Zaira Wasim, and Rohit Saraf.

The 18-year-olds life story is mirrored in the experiences of many who await stem cell donation as treatment for blood-related illnesses likeleukemia, lymphoma, and sickle cell anemia every year. With very few individuals signing up as donors and the probability of finding a match being a dismal 0.0008 percent in India (against a lean 16 percent abroad), fatalities are mounting year on year.

However, in recent times, there has been one small break in the clouds a number of youngsters, non-governmental organisations, and medical professionals have come forward and are working to spread awareness about stem cell donation and motivate a larger number of people to register as donors.

The stem cells in a human body mainly comprise red blood cells, platelets, and white blood cells. These are found in the umbilical cord of newborns and in the peripheral or circulating blood and bone marrow.

A stem cell donation is as simple and painless as a blood donation.

Certain diseases like blood cancer and leukemia tend to destroy the bone marrow or affect its functioning.For these, treatments like chemotherapy and radiotherapy are tried initially. However, in some cases, they do not prove effective for a cure. The only recourse then is replacing the patients stem cells with those of a healthy person.

One of the main criteria for a successful transplant is a good match between the stem cells of the donor and those of the patient. Therefore, a donor registry will administer a cheek swab test (tissue samples extracted from the cheek) on all potential donors to match cell characteristics. This procedure of pairing generic markers is called Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) in medical terms.

A cheek swab test in progress.

Each potential donors tissue is entered in the registry and given an identification number after the test is done. If the registry finds a match at any point in time, the donor is contacted to initiate the transplant.

There are many organisations today that are leading the charge in saving the lives of people suffering from serious blood disorders like cancer, thalassemia, and anaemia.

For instance, Datri, an Ahmedabad-based NGO, is working to create a wide and diverse database of potential stem cell donors by organising donation drives. Founded in 2009 by two doctors and an engineer, the organisation focuses on conducting awareness campaigns and helping individuals sign up on its registry as a committed and voluntary benefactor.

The team of the NGO Datri.

The idea for Datri was initially born in the minds of doctors Nezih Cereb and Soo Young Yang, who run a laboratory, Histogenetics, for determining tissue matches between patients and donors. Since pairing tissue types is imperative for any stem cell transplant, and confronting a severe shortage of donors, the doctor duo would run from pillar to post to meet hospitals requirements. Working with a number of the hospitals in India, they realised just how acute the shortfall was in people willing to donate stem cells. They recognised the immediate need to create a donor registry here.

Soon after, Raghu Rajagopal, an engineer from BITS Pilani and Director of ready-to-eat venture Millets and More, connected with them and they decided to start Datri.

Today, the functioning of the registry, its maintenance, and even the substantial costs involved in conducting the HLA matching are taken care of by the lab. In the last 10 years, Datri has gotten over four lakh people to register as donors and has saved around 600 lives through successful transplantation.

Every day, about 40 people are diagnosed with blood disorders in India. Though these can be cured through a stem cell transplant from a genetically matched donor, there is only a 25 percent chance of finding a match from within the family. Others have no option but to rely on unrelated donors. But the chances of getting a match is anywhere between one in 10,000 and one in two million. There is an urgent need to rope in as many potential donors as possible, which is precisely what Datri is trying to do, Raghu explains.

Another organisation that is dedicated to fighting blood disorders with stem cell treatment is DKMS-BMST. It was formed through a joint venture between two renowned NGOs DKMS, which is one of the largest international blood stem cell donor centres globally, and the Bangalore Medical Services Trust (BMST).

The team of DKMS-BMST.

DKMS was founded in Germany in 1991 by businessman Dr Peter Harf, after he lost his wife to leukemia. BMST was born in 1984 from the vision of Dr Latha Jagannathan, a medical director and managing trustee. Since both organisations had a common goal to find a matching donor for every patient with a blood disorder, they decided to come together to achieve it.

A group of youngsters registering to be stem cell donors.

So far, more than 37,000 people in India have registered as potential donors after attending DKMS-BMSTs donor drives.

In highly populous countries like India, thousands of people are in need of stem cell transplants every year to survive. Though donating stem cells is a painless and non-invasive process, it remains a lesser-known medical concept in India, with only 3.6 lakh people willing to play a part in it. Besides, the chances of stem cells of people of the same ethnicity matching are higher than those of individuals from different ethnic backgrounds. But, it is due to sheer lack of awareness that India lags severely in stem cell donations, say experts.

Students taking a cheek swab test at one of the colleges in Bengaluru.

Dr Govind Eriat, a reputed hematologist and bone marrow transplant specialist, says,

With a major hurdle to stem cell donation in India proving to be the myths surrounding the subject, the youth are coming forward to deconstruct common misconceptions.

For instance, 21-year-old Tejaswini Patel, a student of Information Science at New Horizon College of Engineering, Bengaluru, has been busting the false ideas on stem cell donation, starting among her family and friends. She says,

She adds, with a notable sense of pride, In the last two years alone, around 400 students from my college have registered themselves as donors.

(Edited by Athirupa Geetha Manichandar)

Holy Name clinical trial tests the healing power of stem cells – NJTV News

By adminOctober 19, 2019Stem Cell Doctors

Sixteen months ago, Bob Masterson began a Holy Name Medical Center clinical trial that he hoped would grow more arteries to restore blood flow to his legs sothe wounds on his toeswould heal. If it failed, he risked the possibility of amputation.

Masterson had aa 67% chance of getting the FDA-fast-tracked Pluristem Therapy placenta stem cell injections instead of getting a placebo.

In essence what were injecting is going to recruit the development of blood vessels, cells that are involved in the healing of wounds, said Dr. John Rundback, director of the Interventional Institute at the medical center.

When getting the procedure last year,Mastersonsays he had no idea whether he was getting the placebo or the real thing, but the results from regular visits to the hospital seem to indicate it was the latter.

Doctors want to improve National Institutes of Healthnumbers, whichfind half of all amputees die within five years, with new therapies that could come from the clinical trial of 246 patients at six hospitals.

Masterson says hes grateful for the results but doesnt consider the apparent reversal of his condition a miracle.

But, I see it as a progress in medicine,he said. Cause over my years, Ive seen a lot of people, especially with us who have diabetes, losing their limbs like it was nothing. And this gives them hope.

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Holy Name clinical trial tests the healing power of stem cells - NJTV News

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Holy Name clinical trial tests the healing power of stem cells – NJTV News