Progressing Neural Stem Cell Lines to the Clinic

In recent years, prospects for treating serious neurological disorders have improved with the development of cell therapy as a viable therapeutic strategy. Initial clinical studies on cell implantation therapy in the brain used primary fetal tissue but progress has been made in developing expanded cell lines from somatic neural stem cells and embryonic stem cells. In addition, neural stem cell lines have been established by means of genetic modification to generate immortalized clonal lines including the use of conditional immortalization. These cells and cell lines provide the raw materials for the manufacture of investigational medicinal products for use in early clinical trials. The use of conditional immortalization technologies is particularly attractive for cell therapy products by enabling long term expansion. Cell lines for therapeutic application in neurological disease have been developed by ReNeuron using the c-mycER technology including one line, CTX0E03, that is in late pre-clinical development for the treatment of stroke.