Stem Cell Therapeutics Announces Issuance of Third US Patent

26-May-2006

Stem Cell Therapeutics Corp. announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted U.S. Patent 7,048,934 to the company's wholly-owned subsidiary, Stem Cell Therapeutics Inc. The patent, entitled "Combined Regulation of Neural Cell Production", protects novel methods of treating patients suffering from a variety of central nervous system (CNS) disorders including stroke, brain injury, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, Huntington's disease, and others. The combined regulation method of neural cell production taught in the patent has the potential to be a key technology, required for the successful development of stem cell based approaches for the treatment of many CNS diseases.

"I am greatly encouraged by the issuance of this patent, as it claims the concept of a combined approach to successful regeneration of brain tissue" said Dr. Joseph Tucker, President and CEO of Stem Cell Therapeutics. "The need to both increase the number of neural stem cells and induce their differentiation to appropriate cell types is likely to be a key step in a variety of stem cell based approaches to the treatment of neurological disorders".

Exploiting the capacity of neural stem cells to regenerate lost or dysfunctional brain tissue is one of the most potent therapeutic strategies currently in clinical development. A significant challenge faced by developers of such clinical approaches is that a substantial expansion in stem cell number needs to occur that is coupled with a directed differentiation of those stem cells to appropriate cell types. In the absence of meeting both requirements, a stem cell based therapy may suffer from reduced effectiveness.

The new patent describes methods to enhance the formation of neuronal or glial precursor cells from neural stem cells. U.S. Patent 7,048,934 is the third patent to issue to Stem Cell Therapeutics from an intellectual property estate that includes more than 35 pending applications filed worldwide.

https://www.analytica-world.com/en/news/55055/stem-cell-therapeutics-announces-issuance-of-third-us-patent.html