December 5 2017, Stevenage, UK–Plasticell, a developer of innovative stem cell technologies and cell therapies, today announced it will collaborate with Anthony Nolan, a leading research organisation dedicated to saving the lives of people with blood cancers, to progress clinical development of Plasticell’s ex vivo expanded cord-blood derived hematopoietic stem cell product.
Allogeneic haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) is a curative therapy for patients with life-threating haematological disorders and the most successful cell replacement therapy developed to date with over 40,000 transplantations performed per year worldwide. Cord blood (CB) is an ideal starting point for allogeneic HSCT as it can be collected and banked without compromising the donor and is more easily matched to recipients relative to bone marrow–derived material. However, the limited number of stem cells available in a single cord unit limit their use to paediatric patients and can cause delayed engraftment. [Read more…]