Australian government approves world's first trial for Parkinson's stem cell therapy

The Therapeutics Goods Administration (TGA) of Australia has approved the testing of treatment method based on human parthenogenetic stem cells-derived neural stem cells (ISC-hpNSC) in patients with moderate to severe form of Parkinson's disease.

The announcement came from California-based International Stem Cell Corporation (ISCO), a leader in using stem cells for regenerative medicine. ISCO submitted an application for regulatory approval in Australia, which has finally been approved by the TGA.

"We are very pleased to start the first human study of ISC-hpNSC's for the treatment of this debilitating disease. There is a large unmet medical need for new treatments that may halt or reverse the progression of Parkinson's disease and we believe our human neural stem cells may fill this need for the millions of people with this disease" said ISCO's chief executive officer, Andrey Semechkin, in a press statement.

Under the approval, the doctors are expected to implant new brain cells into 12 Parkinson's patients by March 2016. The replacement brain cells, also called neural precursor cells, are the primitive or immature form of neurons. The immature cells later develop into the neuron that gets destroyed in Parkinson's patients.

The neural precursor cells are derived from ISCO's parthenogenetic stem cells. The latter is obtained from unfertilised human egg cells. Apart from the federal approval, another approval is required from The Royal Melbourne Hospital, where the trial is scheduled to take place.

According to clinicaltrial.gov, this is the first Parkinson's trial that will use replacement brain cells grown from stem cells. The trial will be conducted by Cyto Therapeutics, ISCO's wholly owned subsidiary in Australia.

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