SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Center (AMC) institutes and centers are partnering with Singapore’s first private umbilical cord blood bank, Cordlife Group Limited (Cordlife), to test a novel technology that can increase the number of hematopoietic stem cells in stored umbilical cord blood (UCB) ) in a first-in-man study in Singapore. This is the first time a home-grown UCB cell therapy has been tested in humans. The technology has the potential to improve treatment options for patients with blood cancer or blood-related diseases.
One of the most effective treatments for patients with blood cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma, and hereditary blood-related diseases such as thalassemia is transplantation of hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells (HSPCs) obtained from UCB. Current uses of HSPCs are limited, however, as the number of HSPCs that can be harvested from a UCB is typically small, resulting in few usable units for adult transplant patients. Administration of a UCB with low cell counts often results in slower recovery and a higher susceptibility to fatal infections.
The technology to be tested in this study uses a laboratory-synthesized compound called C7 to expand HSPCs ex vivo, which in turn can be used to create specific cell therapy products for use in patients.
“Based on preclinical studies, C7 appears to be able to expand stem cells from umbilical cord blood to produce sufficient quantities for adult transplant patients while maintaining their quality,” said Professor William Hwang of the Duke and NUS Cancer and Stem Cell Biology Program . Prof. Hwang, director of SingHealth Duke-NUS Cell Therapy Center, is also Medical Director of the National Cancer Center Singapore (NCCS) and Senior Advisor to the Department of Hematology at Singapore General Hospital (SGH).
As a hematologist, his career has been devoted to caring for patients with blood cancer, one of the leading causes of cancer deaths, which causes approximately 720,000 deaths worldwide each year. According to GLOBOCAN 2018 statistics, this is 7 percent of all cancer deaths.
Prof. Hwang and his laboratory team, together with researchers from NUS, discovered the ability of C7 to increase the number of hematopoietic stem cells of UCB. “The effect of C7 on blood stem cells also appears to be better than anything else we’ve used in other clinical studies on cord blood expansion.”
At the head of this clinical study is Dr. Francesca Lim, a consultant at the SGH Department of Hematology and SingHealth Duke-NUS Blood Cancer Center Disadvantages of low total cell dose.
This is an important step forward in improving patient outcomes for transplant patients, especially those who rely on cord blood as the sole source of grafts in the absence of fully matched bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells. “
Duke-NUS and SingHealth manage the patent for the use of C7 in the expansion of UCB HSPC through their Joint Center for Technology and Development (JointCTeD), which sealed the industry partnership with Cordlife to enable this clinical trial.
Associate Professor Chris Laing, Senior Associate Dean for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Duke-NUS, said:
This technology has the potential to significantly improve patient outcomes. We have the privilege of working with the inventors and industry partners to ensure this promising technology continues to advance. This landmark clinical study – UCB’s first clinical study of a stem cell expansion technology in Singapore – is an example of our commitment to translating innovative innovations into better patient care. “
In preclinical studies, UCB treatment has been shown to be immunologically superior to other cell and gene therapies because of its greater tolerance to human leukocyte antigen mismatch, reduced graft-versus-host disease, and lower relapse rate.
“We are very excited to be part of this revolutionary clinical trial in Singapore. This project is important to us as diverse actors across the ecosystem come together to create a paradigm shift in cell therapies. Once the HSPC expansion technology is proven to be safe and secure Effectively, more patients can rely on cord blood for treatment, “said Ms. Tan Poh Lan, Group CEO and Executive Director of Cordlife.
