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Israel-based BrainStorm said on Monday a case report
is being published in the February issue of "Muscle & Nerve" by the
principal investigator and his colleagues at Hadassah Hospital in
Jerusalem and a professor from the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. The
report is already available online.
A 75 year-old-man diagnosed with both MG and amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, was treated
with BrainStorm's NurOwn cells. Both are neurodegenerative diseases.
One month after receiving injections of the cells, the patient and
his family reported significant improvement in cognition, speech,
and muscle power.
After six months, due to progression of weakness and deterioration
in cognition, a repeat injection of NurOwn was performed. Again,
improvements in the ALS functional rating scale were observed, the
report said, adding that treatment with NurOwn appeared safe and
well tolerated.
"The results suggest that repeated therapy may maintain and enhance
the clinical benefits of NurOwn cell therapy in neurological
diseases," it said.
Chaim Lebovits, president of BrainStorm, said the report in "Muscle
& Nerve" was very promising.
"This publication is an important milestone for BrainStorm as this
is the first human data on NurOwn to be published in a prestigious
scientific journal," he said.
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He said the company expects to finalize its Phase IIa clinical
trial in the first half of 2014.
According to the ALS Association, 5,600 people in the United States
are diagnosed each year with the disease, which has severely
disabled British physicist Stephen Hawking.
(Reporting by Tova Cohen)
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