Mesoblast Ltd ADR (MESO)

[SuperSquirrel]

Mesoblast's results are out of this world. CEPH made a great decision in doing a deal with them. However, OSIR's product doesn't even look to be in the same class. I think OSIR is attractive for some, b/c they have a lot more cash than any other stem cell company. They might have more cash than PSTI, ASTM, and ATHX combined. But, they're also at risk of having their partnership axed, since $SNY will probably drop their partnership.

Mesoblast's results for congestive heart failure.

Phase II results just published in Nature [2] showed that Cephalon’s MPCs, branded Revascor, reduced MACE (Major Adverse Cardiac Events : chest pain, heart attack, death, etc) by 84%. Current heart drugs get prescribed if they can reduce MACE by 5%. While two of the 15 untreated control patients died during the study (13%), not a single one of the 45 treated patients died and there were no adverse side-effects reported. All it took was a single injection. While the study size was only 60 people, these results are 99.5% statistically significant and similar results have been demonstrated in analogous animal studies [1].

http://progenitorresearch.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/cephalons-trillion-dollar-drug/

http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v29/n2/full/nbt0211-97a.html

"It should be noted, however, that although Osiris' and Mesoblast's products are both MSC therapies, the target indications and heterogeneity of the clinical populations studied are different. The methods of preparation for the two companies' products are also different: Osiris' cells are prepared by density gradient separation of bone marrow mononuclear cells and then purified on the basis of the (>90%) presence of CD73, CD90 and CD105 markers and absence of CD34, CD45, CD14 and CD3 markers (The Lancet 371, 1553–1554, 2008). Mesoblast's MSCs are CD34+CD117+ cells obtained by sorting granulocyte colony stimulating factor-mobilized bone marrow–derived cells (Nat. Med. 7, 430–436, 2001)."