Stem Cell Therapy Studies in TBI and Stroke: Bijan Nejadnik, MD

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The chief medical officer at SanBio discussed how the investigational agent SB623 is being studied in TBI and stroke, with future planned studies in Alzheimer disease.

“I want to thank all the doctors that helped with this study and also tell clinicians to stay tuned. This is moving forward. Our hope is to one day see that a lot of patients are helped to be able to move their upper and lower extremities; that they're able to walk better, eat better, have a better quality of life. I think this is helpful not only for the patients themselves, but also for their family and people around them.”

Allogeneic modified bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stromal/stem cell (MSC) implantation, dubbed SB623 by developer SanBio, was recently investigated in the 1-year, double-blind, randomized, surgical sham-controlled, phase 2 STEMTRA trial (NCT02416492). Data suggest that the treatment is well-tolerated and efficacious in treating individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Researchers found that 39.1% of patients treated with SB623 reached a clinically meaningful improvement of greater than or equal to 10 points on the Fugl-Meyer Motor Scale (FMSS) as compared to 6.7% of controls (P = .039). The least squares (LS) mean difference between SB623 and control was 6.0 (95% CI, 0.3-1.8; P = .04; LS mean improvement, 2.3; SE, 2.5).

NeurologyLive reached out to Bijan Nejadnik, MD, chief medical officer, SanBio, to learn about studies planned to investigate SB623. Nejadnik also took the time to thank all the doctors involved in investigating the agent.