Geron led the charge to push the US government and society at large to allow use of embryonic stem cells. Scientists believed they could treat myriad diseases because of their ability to become any cell in the human body. But the company has accumulated losses of almost $US300 million over the past four years and has halted its stem cell efforts. Many are wondering if embryonic stem cell research will soon take its final breath.
The cells are controversial because human embryos are destroyed to obtain them. But the company persevered amidst years of public outcry and political punditry and in October 2011 launched the first ever FDA-approved human trial to treat acute spinal cord injuries. Just four of the 10 approved patients have been treated with Geron’s cells, and now it looks like the other six won’t have their chance. A recently launched Swiss trial run by Geron will also presumably be halted. The company has laid of 34 per cent of its staff and will focus now on cancer treatments. Many patients who held out hope for a paralysis cure will be sorely disappointed.
Advanced Cell Technology is one of the only companies (Stem Cells is another) still using embryonic stem cells. It has human clinical trials active in macular dystrophy and macular degeneration.
But other companies, like Neuralstem, are poised to pick up the slack. Neuralstem uses neural rather than embryonic cells and has already seen remarkable success treating ALS (AKA Lou Gehrig’s disease) patients, which I wrote about here.
“This was not a surprise to me,” Richard Garr, CEO of Neuralstem, said about the Geron news. “I think the writing was on the wall when Tom Okarma was either pushed out or left on his own. It was pretty clear the they were not interested in being a stem cell company at that point.”
Okarma was Gerons’s CEO for 13 years and was the public face of the company’s fight to use embryonic stem cells.
Meanwhile, Neuralstem has already treated 12 ALS patients, and doctors will treat number 13 on Friday. Garr believes his cells are easier to control and target than embryonic stem cells for treating neural diseases.
Next up for Neuralstem is a human trial testing their cells in chronic spinal cord patients. So we might be saying goodbye to Geron, but not to the hope of spinal cord injured folks getting out of their wheelchairs. [San Francisco Business Times]
Image: Shutterstock/Andrea Danti
i2
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 9:49 AM[rant] Seriously, where the F is this planets priorities. How much money do we waste on inventing crap (including usless tech gadgets) that we could and SHOULD be investing in to something like this… [/rant]
James
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 10:51 AMYay for religion stomping out progress once again. I’m with i2 on this. This is THE MOST IMPORTANT SCIENCE today and must be persued with vigor, not backing off because some people take issue with it. It will cure basically everything……or maybe we should have scientists concentrate on a virus that only affects people who are devout religious freaks.
Luke
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:10 AMThis may be the death knell for stem cell research in the USA, but thankfully it’s not much of a blip on the radar of stem cell research internationally. Most of the research happening on stem cells up to now has been outside of the USA.
John
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 11:19 AMchina fully endorses this science iirc
James
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 12:01 PMPraise the LORD luke! Thanks for the update, I actually feel a bit better now….. :)
FSM
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 9:15 PMlol yeah, I think this article lacks a few key words “in the USA”.
Anywhere else in the world will continue to research it, and thankfully many other nations have government funded labs and stem cell research isn’t a political or even ethical issue at all, so governments have no problem funding it.
And as another poster above said, China is the future #1 superpower of the world (at least for a time), and they will certainly forge ahead with it, just as they are with space exploration.
Dan
Wednesday, November 16, 2011 at 10:08 PMThere are plenty of labs (non-commercial) doing stem cell work, even in Australia. It’s true that embryonic stem cells weren’t all they were hyped up to be, but current stem cell research is very promising and not controversial.