https://bio.nikkeibp.co.jp/atcl/news/p1/23/12/26/11462/

Sumitomo Pharma announced that the Stanford Stem Cell Institute CIRM will start a physician-initiated clinical trial for Parkinson’s disease treatment using heterologous iPS cells.

The clinical trial will use iPS cells derived from a QHJI donor and provided by the Kyoto University iPS Cell Research Foundation. Sumitomo Pharma will produce dopamine neural progenitor cells from these iPS cells in Japan and provide them to CIRM. Sumitomo Pharma will support the cost of conducting this clinical trial and will use the data for future developments. The clinical trial will target Parkinson’s disease in the phase 1/2 stage. It will be conducted as a single-center, open-label, uncontrolled study, with a target number of 7 patients. The primary endpoint is safety, evaluating the frequency and severity of adverse events. Secondary endpoints include evaluation of motor symptoms.

In Japan, Kyoto University Hospital has been conducting a physician-initiated clinical trial for dopamine neural progenitor cells derived from heterologous iPS cells, developed by Professor Jun Takahashi and colleagues at the Kyoto University iPS Cell Research Institute (CiRA), for seven patients since 2018. Similar to the U.S. investigator-initiated clinical trial, this trial is also using iPS cells (derived from a QHJI donor) provided by the iPS Foundation.