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 However, the treatment failed to improve secondary goals of the
trial, such as heart-pumping efficiency and six-minute walking
distance, and Vericel shares fell more than 31 percent by afternoon
trading on Monday.
"It's a little baffling that you're keeping patients alive, but not
having any effect on those secondary endpoints," said Needham & Co
analyst Chad Messer. "People were looking for downside and they had
one."
The data compared Vericel's bone marrow-derived ixmyelocel-T stem
cells with placebo in 109 well-treated patients with advanced heart
failure who had exhausted medical and device therapies.
After one year, the Vericel treatment led to a 37 percent reduction
versus placebo in a composite of adverse events, including death,
heart-related hospitalizations and unplanned clinic visits related
to heart failure.
Vericel last month reported that the study succeeded. Detailed
results were unveiled on Monday at an American College of Cardiology
meeting in Chicago and in the Lancet medical journal.
The result was primarily driven by the difference in deaths of 13.7
percent in the placebo group, or 7 deaths, compared with 3.4
percent, or 2 deaths, for the ixmyelocel-T group. In addition, 38
percent of stem cell patients required hospitalization, versus 47
percent for placebo.
"This is strong evidence in a well-designed trial that we can
decrease events," said Dr. Timothy Henry, the study's lead
investigator and chief of cardiology at Cedars Sinai Heart Institute
in Los Angeles. "For patients, this is a really hopeful thing."
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Henry, who presented the data at the ACC meeting, stressed the need
for larger trials to prove the benefit of ixmyelocel-T
For the treatment, bone marrow is taken from the patient and
enhanced over two weeks to increase two types of cells associated
with healing. They are then injected directly into the patient's
heart.
With advanced heart failure, a leading cause of hospitalizations,
blood-pumping ability is diminished as the heart's left ventricle
becomes enlarged and weakened.
If the disease worsens despite all available medicinal and
interventional therapies, the only options are heart transplant or a
pumping assist device.
"The idea is to find a treatment for this group of people before
they get to that stage," Henry said.
Vericel shares were down $2.01, or 33 percent, at $4.02 on Nasdaq.
(Editing by Bernadette Baum)
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