Spheramine: Conservatism in Cell Therapy for Parkinson's

Last month’s “Science Matters” column in START-UP highlighted some newly reported cell therapy work in Parkinson’s disease, but suggested that there may be fundamental limitations to any therapy strategy based on restoring dopamine—be it through implanting dopamine neurons or via existing drugs. The good news is that cell replacement therapy at least offers a new experimental model for studying Parkinson’s. And unlike the early days of cardiac cell therapy, where early human studies led to an inappropriate rush into large Phase II trials that disappointed and soured the field, for lots of reasons, clinical progress in PD has been gradual.

So what to make of the Bayer-Titan Pharmaceuticals Spheramine program to deliver human retinal pigment epithelial cells locally into the brain? The cells, which produce dopamine (apparently at a fairly constant concentration), live on little microcapsules, stay where they are put, and don’t require use of immunosuppressants to prevent rejection. All good things. And yesterday’s presentation at the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) Meeting in Chicago of four-year data from a six-patient pilot study showed motor score improvement in patients of 48% at one year and 44% at four years. "Not much in the way of loss there," noted investigator Roy Bakay of Rush University Medical Center, who presented the data.

Because it is delivered locally, Bayer and Titan see Spheramine as an improvement over oral dopamine drugs, which have systemic long-term effects linked to movement disorders. Undoubtedly, the opportunity is part of what attracted Titan’s CEO, Marc Rubin, formerly head of global R&D for Bayer Schering Pharma, who joined Titan last fall.

But many propose that to be effective, cells have to do more than produce or process dopamine: No matter how local or efficient the delivery of dopamine may be, they may also need to integrate into the neural circuitry to be effective. Indeed, the ability to restore the natural biology of a system is one of the rationales – and challenges – of cell replacement therapy.

Because of the cell type, Spheramine can’t do this. So we wonder, from a business perspective, how the added regulatory risk of a cell therapy – and in the case of Parkinson’s trials, the long development time – can be worth the effort when it does not also maximize the benefits of the technology. It’s a lot to go through to prove a decades-old delivery system.

Bayer expects to have data from a 71-patient Phase IIb trial of Spheramine sometime in the third quarter this year. The AANS abstract discussing the Phase IIb trial design noted that 71 patients were randomized and underwent surgery with “tolerable adverse effects.” At least those data should give Bayer and its Berlex subsidiary more leverage in settlement negotiations with the family of a patient from the Phase IIb program, which sued when the patient developed immediate and serious symptoms after receiving a Spheramine implant.