CT Catapult to work with Athersys to advance European development of MultiStem therapy

The Cell Therapy Catapult, which is focused on the development of the UK cell therapy industry to increase the nation's health and wealth, says it is working with US stem-cell specialist Athersys (Nasdaq: ATHX) on multiple projects to progress the development of Athersys’ MultiStemcell therapy product in Europe.

Among the projects, Cell Therapy Catapult will undertake a European market access assessment for the MultiStem product which considers factors such as data requirements for evidence-based decision making, payers' value perceptions and pricing benchmarks.

The Cell Therapy Catapult, which was established by the UK government in 2012, is a center of excellence for the translation of cell therapies into commercially viable propositions. With £70 million ($117.6 million) of funding over five years, it has almost 100 staff with expertise across clinical development, regulatory affairs, manufacturing scale-up, supply chain and business issues such as reimbursement and market access.

Athersys’ proprietary MultiStem cell therapy is an ‘off the shelf’ stem cell product in development for the treatment of multiple distinct diseases and conditions in the cardiovascular, neurological, inflammatory and immune disease areas. The product, which consists of multipotent adult progenitor cells obtained from healthy, consenting donors, is produced from human stem cells obtained from adult bone marrow or other tissue sources. Unlike traditional bone marrow transplants, the resulting product may be manufactured on a large scale, ensuring product consistency, and exhibits a 'drug -like' profile. Currently, MultiStem is the subject of five clinical programs, and is also being assessed in preclinical studies in a range of indications.