Israel’s Gamida Cell, a developer of cell therapy technologies and products for transplantation and adaptive immune therapy, announced that the first person has been successfully transplanted with cryopreserved (frozen) NiCord in the company’s ongoing Phase I/II clinical study for blood cancer patients. This is the first time that a patient has been successfully transplanted with umbilical cord blood stem and progenitor cells, that were expanded (population increased) ex-vivo (outside of the body), and cryopreserved.
NiCord is currently manufactured and shipped to the US and Europe from Gamida Cell in Jerusalem. It is derived from a single umbilical cord blood unit which has been expanded in culture and enriched with stem and progenitor cells using Gamida Cell’s proprietary NAM technology. NiCord is in development as an investigational therapeutic treatment for blood cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma and for non-malignant hematological diseases.
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“This is a significant technological milestone in the evolution of the development of NiCord. Moving forward, in all ongoing and future clinical trials, NiCord® will be used only in its cryopreserved formulation. Until now, NiCord® has been transplanted as a “fresh” product that must be infused into the patient within a limited number of hours from the moment the product is released from the manufacturing site. This timetable restricted the window for transplantation for the patient. It also limited the location of manufacturing sites to the vicinity of participating medical centers and increased the cost of shipping and logistical support required from manufacturing through delivery. To overcome these limitations, Gamida Cell developed a cryopreserved formulation of the product with a long shelf life, ” said Dr. Yael Margolin, president and CEO of Gamida Cell.
Gamida Cell’s pipeline of products are in development with a potential to treat a wide range of conditions including blood cancers, non-malignant hematological diseases such as sickle cell disease and thalassemia, neutropenia and acute radiation syndrome, autoimmune diseases, solid tumors and genetic metabolic diseases as well as conditions that can be helped by adaptive immune therapy such as solid and blood cancers refractory to chemotherapy.
Gamida Cell’s current shareholders include: Novartis, Elbit Imaging, Clal Biotechnology Industries, Israel Healthcare Venture, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Amgen, Denali Ventures and Auriga Ventures. For more information please visit
