DiscGenics, Inc., a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on developing regenerative cell-based therapies that alleviate pain and restore function in patients with degenerative diseases of the spine, today announced the first patients have been treated in its Japanese safety study, a clinical trial of IDCT for mild to moderate degenerative disc disease (DDD). The treatments took place at Tokai University School of Medicine in Kanagawa, led by Dr. Daisuke Sakai, Associate Professor at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery and the study’s principal investigator.
IDCT is a homologous, allogeneic, injectable cell therapy that utilizes biomedically engineered progenitor cells, known as Discogenic Cells, that have been derived from intervertebral disc tissue to offer a non-surgical, potentially regenerative solution for the treatment of mild to moderate DDD.
This prospective, randomized, double-blinded, sham-controlled study is designed to evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of IDCT at two dosage levels in subjects with single-level, symptomatic lumbar DDD, a major cause of chronic low back pain.
“I am excited to be participating in the clinical evaluation of IDCT as a potential cell therapy to treat degenerative disc disease,” said Dr. Sakai. “I am encouraged by my preclinical observations of IDCT’s human Discogenic Cells in a canine disc degeneration model that demonstrated the ability to stop disc height degeneration while improving the structure of the intervertebral disc. If we can achieve similar results in human subjects, the result could be reduced pain and disability associated with DDD.”
