BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics Inc. (OTCBB: BCLI), an innovative developer of adult stem cell technologies and CNS therapeutics, today announced that patients from across the globe are demanding to be included in the pioneering clinical study started earlier this year at Jerusalem's Hadassah University Medical Center. The current Hadassah study, in collaboration with BrainStorm, utilizes BrainStorm's NurOwn™ technology for growing and modifying adult stem cells to treat ALS as well as other neurological diseases.
“So far there has been no effective treatment, nothing even close to arrest progression of ALS”
Adrian Harel, Acting CEO of Brainstorm, said that both he and Prof. Dimitrios Karussis, M.D. Ph.D., who is leading the clinical trial and is the head of Hadassah's Multiple Sclerosis Center and a member of the European Steering Committee for Bone Marrow Transplantation in Multiple Sclerosis, "are being bombarded with letters and calls from the US, Europe and also from Arab countries" from patients wishing to learn more about NurOwn™ and be included in the study. ALS patients number about 750 In Israel and 30,000 in North America at any given time.
"So far there has been no effective treatment, nothing even close to arrest progression of ALS," Dr. Karussis stresses. "This is definitely the first and biggest hope now in this field."
"This clinical study is very important for patients and for their families," said Chaim Lebovits, President of Brainstorm, "because it gives hope that doesn't exist right now.
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