Showing posts with label kohn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kohn. Show all posts

Monday, November 02, 2020

Prop. 14: USA Today Looks at UCLA Gene Therapy and California's Stem Cell Program

The Lagenhop family in Los Angeles for a clinical
trial to treat their children for a fatal affliction
Harrison Hill/USA Today photo


USA Today has published a lengthy piece involving initial, favorable results from a more than $12 million clinical trial backed by the California stem cell agency and involving a rare disease that usually ends the lives of children before they reach kindergarten age.

The article comes on the eve of the final day for voting on a ballot initiative, Proposition 14, to save the agency from financial extinction by giving it $5.5 billion more. Officially known as the California Institute for Regenerative Medicince (CIRM), the 16-year-old agency is running out of its original $3 billion and is scheduled to begin closing its doors this winter without a boost from the initiative.

The research involves three children from Ohio who are being treated at UCLA in a trial being conducted by Donald Kohn, who has performed other genetic therapy procedures for rare diseases. For the work, CIRM awarded Rocket Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a publicly traded, New York-based firm, $6.6 million in May 2019. The firm provided co-funding of $5.6 million. (Here is a link to the summary of the review of the application, CLIN2-11480.)

Over the years, CIRM has supported Kohn's work with $52 million, not including the Rocket funding. 

The USA Today article by Karen Weintraub began with the case of the family of Alicia and Jon Langenhop of Canton, Ohio. The piece delved into the history of the California stem cell program, but did not mention the agency or its official name.  Proposition 14 was mentioned twice, once in the headline. 

USA Today is a national newspaper. Circulation figures for California are not available, although it reports national, weekly circulation of 726,906. Today's story, which would resonate with many voters, was tucked away in its health section.  

The affliction involved is Leukocyte Adhesion Deficiency-I (LAD-I

"Patients with severe LAD-I can develop life-threatening infections because their white blood cells are unable to leave the bloodstream to fight them. Without a successful bone marrow transplant, severe LAD-I is most frequently fatal during the first 2 years of life," the Rocket web site said.

The company's stock price today closed at $28.74, up 70 cents. Its 52-week high is $30.43, and its 52-week low is $9.01

USA Today quoted some researchers as saying taxpayer spending has put the Golden State in "the forefront of global stem cell research." The article said, 

"George Daley, a stem cell biologist who is dean of Harvard Medical School, said he's envious of the California researchers who have access to this pot of money.

"'California has always been a very exciting place to pursue science, but prior to (the taxpayer funding), it wasn't exactly the place that was the first on the tip of your tongue as a powerhouse community for stem cell science,' he said. 'But there's no way that today it wouldn't be listed in the top three.'"

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Read all about California's stem cell agency, including Proposition 14,  in David Jensen's new book. Download it from Amazon:  California's Great Stem Cell Experiment: Inside a $3 Billion Search for Stem Cell Cures. Click here for more information on the author.

Monday, May 07, 2018

Golden State's Stem Cell 'Value:' Bubble Boy Disease and Bringing a Therapy to Market

California's $3 billion stem cell agency today performed a double, PR whammy in an effort to create a greater public understanding of the "key role" it can play in the most expensive and critical steps in creating a therapy that is widely available to the public.

The agency's pitch comes as it faces its potential demise in two years unless it is successful in raising more funds for its operations.

Donald Kohn, UCLA photo
The agency's starting point today involved research for cures for an affliction that has received highly visible, albeit intermittent, coverage over the past several decades. The fatal affliction is often referred to as the "bubble boy" syndrome or, more accurately, SCID,  Severe Combined Immune Deficiency.

In this case, it involves UCLA scientist Donald Kohn, a British firm, Orchard Therapeutics, Inc., opening new facilities in California (Menlo Park and Foster City) and a $20 million award. The cash, however, is only a relatively small piece of the state's immune deficiency investment. 

$141 million for immuno deficiencies

Over the years, Kohn's research has been backed by at least $52 million from the taxpayer-financed California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), as the agency is formally known. Overall, it has pumped more than $141 million into immune deficiency disorders, not all of which is directly related to SCID. 

Responding to a query, Kevin McCormack, senior director for CIRM communications, said,
"We’re a lot more than just a pretty face you know. We feel we’re helping change the face of medicine."
Or as Maria Millan, president of CIRM, said both in a news release and in an article on the agency's blog, The Stem Cellar: 
"We invest when others are not ready to take a chance on a promising but early stage project. That early support not only helps the scientists get the data they need to show their work has potential, but it also takes some of the risk out of investments by venture capitalists or larger pharmaceutical companies."
She continued, 
"Our funding and partnership has enabled the smooth transfer of Dr. Kohn’s technology from the academic to the industry setting while conducting this important pivotal clinical trial. With our help, Orchard was able to attract more outside investment and now it is able to grow its pipeline utilizing this platform gene therapy approach.”

De-risking stem cell therapies

In biotech, all this is referred often as "de-risking" and helping research advance beyond the "valley of death," the stage at which conventional financing for research becomes exceedingly difficult to secure. Both have been goals of the agency for some time and are part of what Millan refers to as the agency's "value proposition." 

Boosting public recognition of the value created by CIRM is likely to be a key element in winning approval of a proposed $5 billion bond initiative in 2020, seeking more cash for the agency. The agency estimates that it will run out of money for new awards at the end of next year. 

The agency noted the significance of the deal that GlaxoSmithKline(GSK) made last month with Orchard.  Although the agency tends to focus strongly on medical and scientific achievements, today's PR hit had a stronger emphasis on business matters. Without a successful business model, it is unlikely that any CIRM research will reach the general population.

California's key role

CIRM said,
"Under the deal, GSK not only transfers its rare disease gene therapy portfolio to Orchard, it also becomes a shareholder in the company with a 19.9 percent equity stake. GSK is also eligible to receive royalties and commercial milestone payments. This agreement is both a recognition of Orchard’s expertise in this area, and the financial potential of developing treatments for rare conditions."
Mark Rothera, Orchard photo 
The agency quoted the CEO of Orchard, Mark Rothera, as saying,
"The funding and advice from CIRM allowed Orchard to accelerate the development of OTL-101 and to build a manufacturing platform to support our development pipeline which includes 5 clinical and additional preclinical programs for potentially transformative gene therapies."
The GSK-Orchard deal, CIRM said, was "good news for both companies and for the patients who are hoping this research could lead to new treatments, even cures, for some rare diseases. It was also good news for CIRM, which played a key role in helping Orchard grow to the point where this deal was possible."

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Bubble Babies, Cures and California's Stem Cell Agency



Alysia Padilla-Vacarro and daughter, Evangelina, on the day
 of the baby's life-saving gene therapy treatment at UCLA.
UCLA photo
Numbers speak loudly in America. We focus intently – sometimes obsessively -- on everything from baseball statistics to the latest count of illegal immigrants. Numbers appear to create certainty and tend to drive discussion of public issues.

Which is where the California stem cell agency comes in.  Executives at the agency point with pride to the 10 clinical trials that it has helped to fund. They do not point to the zero number of therapies that the agency has placed in the public marketplace despite the apparent promises of the ballot campaign that created the research effort 10 years ago this month.

Nonetheless, agency has chalked up some indirect scores that are difficult to quantify but deserve ample consideration when evaluating the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine(CIRM), as the agency is formally known.

One dramatic example gained national media attention last week. The case involves work at UCLA for what appears to be a cure for the fatal “bubble boy” syndrome. The term was coined back in the 1970s when stories involving a youngster in Texas made headlines across the country.  The child had to live inside a plastic bubble because his immune system was compromised. The case even inspired a 1976 movie called “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble” starring John Travolta. (See here, here and here.)

Enter Donald Kohn, many years later.  Kohn is director of the Human Gene Medicine program at UCLA. And last week, the Los Angeles university announced that Kohn and his team have developed a treatment that cures the “bubble boy” syndrome by altering the genes of the afflicted children.  In clinical trials, the UCLA announcement said, the lives of 18 children were saved.

Kohn used a virus delivery system that he first developed in his lab in the 1990s. But the work on the gene treatment began in earnest in 2009 and involved two, multi-year clinical trials.

UCLA's Nov. 18 news release described the treatment simply like this:
“During the trials, the patient's blood stem cells were removed from their bone marrow and genetically modified to correct the defect.”
The stem cell agency did not directly fund Kohn’s “bubble” research, but some of its other funding at UCLA contributed to the effort. Specifically, the work was performed in the stem cell research facility that CIRM helped to finance. Kohn’s lab is in the “shared research lab” space funded by CIRM in still another program. The research was also aided by persons working in two other separate CIRM training programs.

The next step for Kohn will be to use the research in proposed clinical trials involving sickle cell anemia, which are being financed by CIRM to the tune of $13.1 million. They will also be part of the agency’s Alpha clinic program.

Steve Peckman, associate director of the UCLA stem cell center, said the Kohn research “is a perfect example of how CIRM support at all levels is critical to achieve the goal of driving scientific discoveries to the clinic.”

Kohn’s work was cited last week at a Los Angeles media event celebrating CIRM’s 10th birthday. Maria Shriver, the former first lady of California and whose father died of Alzheimer’s Disease, wrote about the research and linked it glowingly to the stem cell agency in an item on the Huffington Post on Nov. 20.  She said,
“The news about 'bubble baby' disease is just the start. I am convinced that stem cell research means we Baby Boomers will be the last generation to have to watch our parents die of Alzheimer's or watch our children die prematurely of sickle cell disease. Proposition 71 (which created the stem cell agency) set this research in motion. Now we have to make sure this research keeps moving forward.” 
While CIRM deserves credit for its role in Kohn’s work, it is only one of 10 entities cited by UCLA as contributing but without providing figures.  Accurately quantifying CIRM’s contribution is difficult if not impossible. That said, it was significant. The agency’s programs do ripple out – not only at UCLA but globally.  They add to the bank of knowledge about stem cells, all of which creates an easier path to the ultimate development of new therapies.
 
Ironically, one of the CIRM programs -- the "shared labs" -- that helped Kohn has expired despite pleas by some of the state’s top stem cell scientists. News about that program surfaced again a few days after the Kohn announcement. Without mentioning Kohn, Jeanne Loring, head of the stem cell program at Scripps, discussed the importance of the "shared labs" in a piece on the blog of UC Davis stem cell researcher Paul Knoepfler.

Loring said the program has had “an enormous impact beyond (its) original intention.” 
In her “open letter to CIRM,” she said,
“Unwittingly, CIRM’s shared lab program jump-started human stem cell research in California, sending it on a trajectory that has led to stem cell clinical trials in just 6 years….CIRM did not expect that there would be interaction among the labs that would make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. The network of shared labs became our means to communicate and share ideas. It sparked new partnerships between institutions throughout the state, and became a conduit for trainees to move from CIRM’s Bridges internships to graduate school. One scientist described the shared labs as ‘the beating heart of California’s stem cell program.’”
She noted that the program was discussed by the CIRM governing board in December 2013 at a time when the directors were being told that the money for new grants would run out in 2017. Today, however, Randy Mills, the new CIRM president, has reexamined the financial assumptions and says the money will be around until 2020.

Loring and 11 other researchers are asking the CIRM governing board at its December board meeting to provide the go-ahead for applications for another round of funding for what they say is the key maintaining the rapid pace of stem cell research in California.

Anything less, they say, would impede the development of stem cell treatments and waste a good portion of the $20 million already spent on the “shared labs” effort.

Perhaps Donald Kohn would agree as well. 

Here is a two-minute CIRM video of Kohn explaining his work.

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