Neuralstem, Inc. announced that it has received a notice of allowance from the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for patent application 12/418,170 pertaining to a "Spinal Platform and Method for Delivering a Therapeutic Agent to a Spinal Cord Target." Neuralstem is the exclusive worldwide licensee of this device from the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, where it was developed by Nicholas Boulis, MD, formerly of the Cleveland Clinic, now at Emory University. The device is currently in use in Neuralstem's ongoing phase I safety trial of its human spinal cord stem cells (HSSCs) in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease) at Emory, where Dr Boulis is the surgeon.

“This is an important patent,” said Richard Garr, Neuralstem president and CEO. “We are encouraged by the outstanding safety profile this device demonstrated with the first 12 patients of our ongoing ALS trial, and expect that it will become the industry standard for injecting therapies into the spinal cord. The company is the exclusive worldwide licensee, and expects to license this device to the industry and the research community.”

Neuralstem's patented technology enables 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 constitutively into mature, physiologically relevant human neurons and glia.