A potential anti-aging breakthrough has been made with a new stem cell therapy to treat frailty in older adults…
The work now set to move into the final phase of human clinical trials.
Promising new study results show the safety of using mesenchymal stem cell therapy to treat frailty in older adults has recently been publicized by researchers at the Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute (ISCI) at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
In a randomized, placebo-controlled trial, they have now verified their initial study, boosting the potential for this stem cell therapy to reverse or forestall the symptoms of frailty. Currently there no currently approved medical therapy for frailty, the need is expected to grow substantially given the overall aging of global populations.
“It’s a huge need — that’s one of the exciting things,” said Joshua M. Hare, M.D., the Louis Lemberg Professor of Medicine and founding director of ISCI. Frailty is estimated to affect about 10 to 11 percent of seniors, a considerable percentage of the 50 million people older than 65 years experts predict by the year 2050.
Results of the AllogeneiC Human Mesenchymal Stem Cell in Patients with Aging FRailTy via IntravenoUS Delivery (CRATUS) Phase I trial and subsequent CRATUS Phase II trial were simultaneously published in The Journals of Gerontology.
“The idea that we can biologically modify frailty is very exciting.”
“I was very surprised and excited with the results,” Hare said. Replicating their results in the Phase II randomized trials “gives me even greater confidence” in the findings. For example, both trials demonstrated a significant and meaningful increase in six-minute walk tests among older adults with frailty compared to their baseline.
“The idea that we can biologically modify frailty is very exciting,” Hare said. In fact, the research by Hare and his team demonstrate the beneficial effects of mesenchymal stem cell therapy
“Mesenchymal stem cells are a multifactorial way of offsetting many of the key features of aging,” Hare said.
In terms of next steps, the stem cell life sciences company Longeveron has acquired the technology and is expanding the findings in a Phase IIb trial at 10 sites nationwide.
