Neuralstem, Inc. (NYSE MKT: CUR) announced that it has granted the first licenses for use of its Spinal Cord Delivery Platform and Floating Cannula, for delivering therapeutic agents to the spinal cord, to Salt Lake City-based Q Therapeutics. This platform and cannula have been in use since 2010, in the recently completed Phase I ALS trial delivering Neuralstem's NSI-566 neural stem cells into the spinal cords of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease). The devices have been demonstrated to be safe in the 18 industry-leading surgeries. Neuralstem holds the exclusive worldwide licenses to the surgical devices.
"This is the beginning of a new paradigm in treating multiple indications for spinal cord diseases," said Richard Garr, Neuralstem's President and CEO. "Intraspinal delivery of therapeutics has long been thought to pose problems too difficult to overcome. However, we have established compelling safety data in our first-in-human, 18-patient trial, and we expect to continue to license out the surgical devices to both industry and academia as they now begin to explore the possibilities our technology has enabled."
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