Mesenchymal Stem Cell Therapy for Lung Rejection

The overall clinical development strategy of this project is to conduct this Phase I dose escalation study entitled "A pilot Study to Evaluate the Safety and Feasibility of Mesenchymal Stem Cells to Induce Remission in Lung Transplant Patients Experiencing Treatment-Refractory Moderate Lung Rejection". This study will be performed under this current IND application and will be limited to the proposed 19 subjects (5 subjects in each of two dose escalating subject cohorts, and 5 subjects in a "boost dose" group who previously received MSC as part of the previous phase 1a study which included 9 patients In this application we are proposing to evaluate safety and feasibility of allogeneic, bone marrow (BM) derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) to induce remission of moderate treatment refractory bronchiolitis obliterans (BO/BOS). Lung transplant patients with treatment refractory BO/BOS (grade 3) who do not qualify for a second transplant have near 100% mortality or extreme disability. MSCs are multi-potent cells that have the capacity to induce tissue repair and modulate immune response. They have been used successfully in preclinical and clinical studies to treat graft versus host disease (GVHD) and inflammatory bowel disease. Patients that progressed to moderate BO despite adequate medical treatments and who do not qualify for a second transplant will receive intravenous treatments of allogeneic MSC. The safety measure will include tolerance of MSC infusion and absence of significant cardiopulmonary compromise. The feasibility assessment will include ease of recruitment, practical issue of transporting, preparing and infusing the MSCs. The clinical assessment from this initial safety study is intended to demonstrate safety of human MSC in subjects with BO and to evaluate the cell dose that demonstrates signs of efficacy. Pending favorable safety results and pharmacokinetic and pharamcodynamic data obtained in the current proposed study we will likely conduct additional human studies with a more directed focus on the evaluation of efficacy while collecting additional safety information.