By Patricia Weiss
SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain (Reuters) -Bayer has started the third phase of human testing of an experimental stem cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease, with future results potentially underpinning a request for regulatory approval, the company said on Monday.
Despite still being years from market launch, Bayer, which spent about $250 million on a new facility for cell therapies in California in 2023, said it is already working on a manufacturing network for the cell-replacement therapy.
The cell and gene therapy push has been seen by investors as an uncertain longer-term attempt to revive its drug development pipeline while it seeks to reduce financial debt and fight litigation that could cost it billions of dollars.
COMPETING CELL THERAPIES FOR PARKINSON’S DISEASE
Over the near term, Bayer’s pharmaceutical unit is banking on revenue from products such as new prostate cancer drug Nubeqa, kidney treatment Kerendia and a menopause relief drug to offset expiring patents for bestsellers like stroke prevention drug Xarelto and an older version of eye medication Eylea.
The experimental Parkinson’s therapy, developed by Bayer’s BlueRock subsidiary, was previously shown to be well-tolerated, and the transplanted cells have grown as intended in patients’ brains.
Bayer’s Asklepios Biopharmaceutical unit, also known as AskBio, is separately in Phase II of testing a new gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease.
The hunt for Parkinson’s treatments has seen many setbacks over the past decades. But a number of research teams have said they are working on a similar approach that transplants modified cells to restore parts of the brain that normally produce dopamine.
They include Japan’s Sumitomo Pharma, a team at Lund University and Cambridge University, U.S. biotech firm Aspen Neuroscience, and a team at hospital network Mass General Brigham in Boston.
For BlueRock’s procedure, researchers take human stem cells and transform them into dopamine-producing nerve cells.
When surgically implanted into the brain of a person with Parkinson’s disease, the therapeutic cells are designed to restore neural networks destroyed by the disease.
There is currently no cure for Parkinson’s disease, which causes progressive brain damage and affects more than 10 million people worldwide. Common symptoms are loss of muscle control, tremors, muscle rigidity and slowness of movement with dementia seen in some patients.
(Reporting by Patricia Weiss; Writing by Ludwig Burger; Editing by Joe Bavier)
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