Academia Sinica, the National Laboratory of Taiwan, has signed an exclusive license and commercialization agreement with StemCyte, Inc., headquartered in Covina, CA, and Ewing, NJ, covering certain proprietary methods and IP related to the treatment of chronic stroke with stem cells. John Lin, MD, PhD, professor of neurosurgery at China Medical University Hospital and vice superintendent in the Center for Neuropsychiatry, has collaborated with StemCyte scientists over the past three years on the potential commercial application of adult stem cells to treat chronic stroke, which affects some 15 million people worldwide annually. The team has completed a Phase Ib/IIa clinical trial and is currently completing the Phase II study. Preclinical and Phase I study results suggested significant improvement in patients, and preliminary Phase II indications mirror those results. StemCyte has assembled a racially diverse collection of cell units derived from umbilical cord blood and has successfully developed Taiwan’s leading bank for these cells. The agreement augments StemCyte’s other patented methods of cell collection, storage, and treatment. The company’s involvement in the development of umbilical cord blood-based cell therapies includes the world’s largest clinical study of unrelated cord blood transplantation for thalassemia — a common genetic disease — and trials investigating regenerative spinal cord therapies.
Source: Yahoo! Canada Finance