International Stem Cell completes cell bank manufacturing for Parkinson's disease clinical trial

Published 04 February 2015

International Stem Cell, a California-based biotechnology company developing novel stem cell-based therapies and biomedical products, announced that the company has completed manufacturing of the cell bank of clinical-grade human neural stem cells using its patented process for the recently announced phase 1/2a clinical trial in Parkinson's disease.

The cell bank contains over 2.6 billion human cells, sufficient to meet the company's foreseeable clinical trial requirements.

"Completing the production of clinical-grade cells using the previously published protocol is one of the final steps before starting our clinical program," said Ruslan Semechkin, Ph.D., ISCO's Chief Scientific Officer.

"Because of the complexity involved in manufacturing live human cell products, having our own GMP facility is not only a strategic advantage, but also allows us to control the production costs. We continue to anticipate, subject to regulatory agency approval, beginning the clinical trial in early 2015 and will provide a further update in the near future."

ISCO's master cell bank of human parthenogenetic neural stem cells (ISC-hpNSC) is produced in compliance with current good manufacturing practices (cGMPs) and the chemistry and manufacturing controls (CMC) discussed in the previously reported pre-IND meeting with the FDA. The cells are karyotypically normal hpNSCs and free of measurable contaminants of human or animal origin.

The production of hpNSCs from undifferentiated pluripotent human parthenogenetic stem cells in the master cell bank uses qualified reagents and a standardized protocol developed by ISCO. The undifferentiated human stem cells are derived from the parthenogenetic line and were recently cleared by the FDA for use in clinical trials.

Each batch of hpNSC is subjected to standardized quality control testing to ensure viability, sterility and appropriate cellular composition before clinical use. The existing master cell bank and current production scale are sufficient to supply our anticipated product needs through pivotal clinical trials. The cell bank was produced at the company's state of the art GMP manufacturing facility located in Oceanside, Calif.

ISC-hpNSCs are a novel therapeutic cellular product derived from the Company's proprietary human pluripotent stem cells. Neural stem cells are self-renewing multipotent cells that are precursors for the main cell types of the central nervous system.

The ability of ISC-hpNSCs to differentiate into dopaminergic neurons and express brain-protecting neurotrophic factors offers a new opportunity for the treatment of Parkinson's disease. ISCO's preclinical program includes animal studies to assess the safety and tolerability of our novel cell therapy as well as doses ranging efficacy to be used to design the first clinical trial in Parkinson's disease patients.

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International Stem Cell completes cell bank manufacturing for Parkinson's disease clinical trial