Grant Awarded to Newcastle University to Research Athersys’ MultiStem in Machine Perfusion Prior to Kidney Transplantation

Athersys, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATHX), a cell therapy and regenerative medicine company developing MultiStem (invimestrocel) for critical care indications, announces that Dr. Samuel Tingle, a surgeon and PhD candidate at Newcastle University in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, has received grant funding from the UK Research and Innovation’s Medical Research Council to explore the potential use of Athersys’ MultiStem cellular therapy during machine perfusion prior to kidney transplantation. Machine perfusion refers to a technology used for limiting the damaging effects of removing and transporting kidneys prior to transplantation. It involves a machine that pumps fluid around the organ while it is outside the body, allowing for the potential therapeutic treatments to the kidney after donation.

The funding is for a planned study at Newcastle University titled “Hollow-fiber bioreactor technology to explore mechanisms and delivery of cellular therapy during machine perfusion of donated human kidneys,” which seeks to better understand the mechanisms of action and identify an optimal delivery method for Multipotent Adult Progenitor Cells (MAPC), the research grade equivalent of MultiStem cells, into the kidney. Athersys and Newcastle University researchers previously demonstrated that administration of MAPC cells to donor human kidneys during machine perfusion resulted in healthier organs more suitable for transplantation.

“We see the benefits of MAPC cell therapy as wide reaching because the processes that injure donated organs also occur in common medical situations such as heart attacks and strokes. The planned study builds on our previous collaboration which demonstrated the potential benefit of this therapy to treat human kidney ischemia/reperfusion injury ex vivo. These data demonstrate that treatment with MAPC cell therapy is feasible when undertaken immediately following ischemic injury, which is the damage done to an organ when it is deprived of its blood flow, and that treatment improves function while simultaneously decreasing inflammation and markers of acute kidney injury. We look forward to sharing our results with Athersys as we advance our understanding of how best to utilize these cells to improve kidney transplants,” said Dr. Tingle.