Scimitar Equity Blog

LSE: RENE.L confirmed that the first patient has been treated to evaluate neural stem cell therapy in stroke patients.

The Pisces study (pilot investigation of stem cells in stroke) is evaluating the lead ReN001 cell therapy in patients who have been disabled by ischemic stroke.

• The Pisces trial will evaluate the safety of ReN001 at a range of cell doses, although measures of efficacy will also be collected;
• RENE says the 1st individual to receive the implanted cells was discharged from the Institute of Neurological Sciences at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow 2 days after the “straightforward neurosurgical procedure” was carried out to implant the cells;
•  The patient’s progress will be reviewed in 12/10 by the trial’s data safety monitoring board, before the remainder of the first cohort of patients are treated;
• RENE was granted UK Gene Therapy Advisory Committee (GTAC) approval to start the ReN001 trial back in 2/10; 

RENE’s preclinical-stage stem cell therapy, ReN009 is in development for the treatment of peripheral arterial disease.  

• Stem cell therapy pipeline hinges on its stem cell expansion technology that enables the growth of selected human stem cells into banks of quality-assured stem cell lines starting from a single tissue sample;
• This capability is allowing the development of non-patient specific, allogeneic stem cell treatments capable of addressing diseases with large patient populations;
• The expansion platform also allows the scale-up of stem cell lines for clinical and commercial use without the need to re-derive cell lines from early prototypes.

RENE is also commercializing its ReNcell® cell lines for non-therapeutic research applications. ReNcell®VM is a neural cell line derived from the ventral mesencephalon region of the brain, and ReNcell®CX is derived from the cerebral cortex.

• Both cell lines have been licensed exclusively to Millipore for manufacture and worldwide distribution through their research reagent catalog.