Athersys Advances Off-the-Shelf Stem Cell Therapy for Stroke

Among the many challenges to developing stem cell therapies is the need to match donors to recipients and the risk of graft vs. host disease that requires the use of immunosuppressants. Athersys has developed a stem cell therapy platform known as MultiStem that makes use of a type of stem cell that doesn’t carry the risk of causing an immune response. What’s more, cells from a single donor can be expanded to provide potentially millions of doses to treat a wide range of conditions making it a scalable, off-the-shelf therapy. The company’s is in late-stage clinical testing of its cell therapy for the treatment of ischemic stroke, a leading cause of serious disability. We spoke to Gil Van Bokkelen, CEO of Athersys, about the company’s MultiStem platform, how it works, and the range of indications it is pursuing.