Corneal transplants. This is a quote from today's 10Q. Does anyone know the present status of this program?
If ACT has a potential treatment for corneal disease, this seems like another blockbuster. I really haven't seen much about this program, but that may just be my own lack of dilligence. Anyone?
Corneal Endothelial Program
We have been able to generate sheets of corneal endothelial cells, with Descemet membrane, from hESCs. These endothelial sheets, which resemble fetal cornea in cell density, and thickness and durability of the tissue graft, could serve as the transplanted tissue in Descemet’s Stripping with Endothelial Keratoplasty. In culture, our corneal endothelial cells have all the hallmarks, both marker expression and morphology, of native human corneal endothelium. We are testing these cells in several animal models of corneal diseases. We will continue our pre-clinical investigation in animal models, with the goal of establishing that the transplanted tissue functions correctly in the animals, and then consider preparation of an IND and/or IMPD application to commence clinical studies with these cells. As part of our evaluation of this program, we will consider, among other things, the data generated from pre-clinical studies, our understanding of the potential market opportunity, and our ability to allocate capital resources to adequately fund the program to the next milestone.
