Bel­gium's liv­er-fo­cused stem cell ther­a­py de­vel­op­er Promethera rais­es $44M+ in lat­est round

Bet­ting on its stem cell ther­a­py for end-stage liv­er dis­ease, Bel­gium-based Promethera Bio­sciences has got €39.7 mil­lion (about $44.4 mil­lion) in the bank to de­vel­op the drug as an al­ter­na­tive to of­ten hard-to-pro­cure trans­plants.

Es­tab­lished in 2009, Promethera’s lead drug is an ex­per­i­men­tal stem cell ther­a­py called He­paStem for pa­tients with a dead­ly syn­drome called acute-on-chron­ic liv­er fail­ure, or ACLF, for whom trans­plants are the on­ly ex­ist­ing res­cue treat­ment. De­rived from hu­man liv­ers, the ther­a­py is for­mu­lat­ed us­ing mes­enchy­mal stem cells (MSCs) re­plete with liv­er mark­ers and liv­er fea­tures. At the In­ter­na­tion­al Liv­er Con­gress last month, Promethera pre­sent­ed da­ta from an on­go­ing dose-es­ca­la­tion Phase IIa study, which showed the treat­ment is safe and sug­gest­ed “trends in ef­fi­ca­cy.”

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