More details emerged today about a $2 million sickle cell award and clinical trial involving the California stem cell agency, including the location of the trial in Los Gatos and the involvement of a Stanford University researcher.
The award was approved last Friday by the agency. It went to a Canadian firm, ExCellThera, Inc., which is partially matching the state award with $857,143. With the addition of ExCell, the stem agency is now involved in 63 clinical trials.
The company said yesterday that the Phase 1 trial, which involves safety, will use its ECT-001 product, and will be conducted at the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. It will be led by Sandeep Soni of Stanford University. The safety phase trial is aimed at children and young adults.
Guy Sauvageau, CEO and founder of ExCellThera, said in a news release.
"The current standard of care for severe sickle cell disease is a blood stem cell transplant, which is only available to patients who have a matched donor.
“However, the unique properties of ECT-001 cell therapy enable patients without a matched donor to receive treatment, with a greatly reduced risk of post-transplant complications. This study introduces a new indication into the ongoing evaluation of our ECT-001 technology, which we hope will make this life-saving therapy available to a far greater number of severely ill patients."
The trial has not yet been posted on clinicaltrials.gov. It is not clear whether recruitment of patients is underway. Here is a link to a summary of the stem cell agency's review of ExcellThera's application (CLIN2SCD-11674).
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