Vericel Corp. (VCEL)

[commoncentsinvestor]

" If it were not for the recent FDA approval, many here would not have purchased in spite of all the "excitement" about the recent stem cell trial. "

That statement definitely does apply to me. I bought shares strictly on the basis of the cartilage business potential. I have many friends, relatives and associates who have suffered through the trials and tribulations of knee problems and then additional problems after total knee replacement. If what I see personally is any indication, this is a HUGE market and any company that "builds a better mousetrap", ie solution, could be a big winner.

It wasn't until a couple of weeks after owning shares that I began to seriously look at Ixmyelocel-T and the added "excitement" about both that and Epicel led me to buy many more shares than I would have based only upon MACI.

The following all sounds exciting to me:

"The trial was designed to provide approximately 80% power to show a 46% difference in cardiac events for ischemic DCM patients treated with ixmyelocel-T compared to placebo. A total of 114 patients were treated in the ixCELL-DCM clinical trial at 28 sites in the United States.

“The results of the ixCELL-DCM study, which we believe is the largest randomized cell therapy trial to treat congestive heart failure completed to date, demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful reduction in cardiac events in patients who received treatment with ixmyelocel-T compared to placebo,” said Dr. David Recker, Vericel’s chief medical officer. “We are very excited about these study results given the lack of treatment options for end-stage heart failure patients.”

I think your questions about WHY the results were positive and what caused them to be, are valid and hope we hear more about this as the status of the product proceeds. But for now, based upon my view of the company overall, I could not be more excited about my investment.