Neuralstem, Inc announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved its Investigational New Drug (IND) application to commence a phase-I trial to treat Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease) with its spinal cord stem cells.

Neuralstem is the first company to commence a stem cell trial to treat ALS. The trial will study the safety of Neuralstem's cells and the surgical procedures and devices required for multiple injections of Neuralstem's cells directly into the grey matter of the spinal cord. The FDA's approval represents a significant step toward delivering regenerative medicine directly to damaged neural cells in humans. ALS affects roughly 30,000 people in the US, with about 7,000 new diagnoses per year.

Neuralstem CEO and president, Richard Garr, stated, "The beginning of our clinical trial program is a major step towards achieving Neuralstem's goal of treating ALS, a fatal neurodegenerative disease for which currently there is no effective treatment or cure. While this trial aims to primarily establish safety and feasibility data in treating ALS patients, we also hope to be able to measure a slowing down of the ALS degenerative process. This trial will be in the extremely capable hands of Dr Eva L Feldman, director of the University of Michigan Health System ALS Clinic and the Program for Neurology Research & Discovery, and Dr. Jonathan Glass, Director of the Emory Neuromuscular Laboratory and director of the Emory ALS Center, world-renowned for their study and treatment of ALS patients. We believe that there is no better team to conduct this study for us," said Garr. Their participation is subject to formal IRB approval by their institutions.

"We are very excited about this clinical trial," said Dr Eva L Feldman, who will direct the Neuralstem clinical trial program for ALS. "This is a major advancement in what still could be a long road to a new and improved treatment for ALS. ALS is a terrible disease that ultimately kills by paralysis," said Feldman, who also directs the A Alfred Taubman Medical Research Institute. "In work with animals, these spinal cord stem cells both protected at-risk motor neurons and made connections to the neurons controlling muscles. We don't want to raise expectations unduly, but we believe these stem cells could produce similar results in patients with ALS," Dr Feldman concluded.

Neuralstem's patented technology enables, for the first time, the ability to produce neural stem cells of the human brain and spinal cord in commercial quantities, and the ability to control the differentiation of these cells into mature, physiologically relevant human neurons and glia.