Geron Corporation, the first company authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of USA for testing patients with embryonic stem cells, such research has been suspended for lack of money, the company said in a statement.
The biopharmaceutical canceled the study to a treatment for paraplegia due to “the current shortage of capital and uncertain economic conditions,” according to Geron in the note.
However, it will continue to monitor the progress of patients who have already participated in the study and duly reported to the FDA and the medical community on its progress.
The company thus eliminating 66 jobs, 38% of total employees. But now the company will turn on and GRN1005 imetelstat two experimental cancer treatments.
“By reducing the investigation to the oncology therapeutic area, we hope to have sufficient financial resources to achieve these inflection points. This would not be possible if we continue to provide funds to embryonic stem cell program at current levels,” added the company, based in California.
The U.S. Government Geron authorized on January 23, 2009 the first human trial of stem cell treatment for spinal cord damage. These were patients classified by the American Association of Spinal Cord Injury (ASIA) “grade A”, the most severe. In addition, the wound must be very recent. These people received injections of cells called “GRNOPC1″.
In July this year a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by two scientists against government funding for stem cell research. The country’s president, Democrat Barack Obama, reduced by executive order in 2009 the restrictions on stem cell research imposed during the presidency of Republican George W. Bush (2001-2009) and expanded the funding for that field.
The plaintiffs, James Sherley scientists and Theresa Deisher, argued that research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH, for its acronym in English) violated the Dickey-Wicker law of 1996 which prohibits taxpayers to fund projects that damage a embryo.
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