Stem cell co Mesoblast re­ports PhI­II tri­al suc­cess in chil­dren with GVHD

An Aus­tralian stem cell com­pa­ny tack­ling a dis­ease that of­ten be­falls blood can­cer pa­tients says it’s met the pri­ma­ry end­point of a Phase III tri­al — and it’s ex­pect­ing an ac­cel­er­at­ed FDA OK any day now.

The com­pa­ny, called Mesoblast $MESO, was test­ing its al­lo­gene­ic mes­enchy­mal stem cell prod­uct called remestem­cel-L. The off-the-shelf ther­a­py is meant to treat Graft Ver­sus Host Dis­ease, a con­di­tion that of­ten aris­es in blood can­cer pa­tients who’ve had bone mar­row trans­plants. Af­ter these trans­plants oc­cur, donor cells have been known to at­tack the pa­tient, caus­ing GVHD, which ac­ti­vates an in­flam­ma­to­ry re­sponse and po­ten­tial tis­sue dam­age in the skin, gut, and liv­er. When the con­di­tion is se­vere and the pa­tient doesn’t re­spond to steroids, it can be fa­tal.

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