SMF Notes Geron: Color on strength (2.98 +0.31)

Geron Corp (GERN), which develops cell therapy products from human embryonic stem cells for central nervous system disorders, heart failure, osteoarthritis, diabetes and spinal cord injury, is up ~11% today on no company specific news. There are however a few pieces of news out today on the stem cell industry that may be supporting the shares.

First, StemCells Inc (STEM) announced this morning the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine approved STEM"s application for a "Disease Team Therapy Development Planning Award." The grant, totaling approx $100K was said to help fund the co's plans to develop its proprietary human neural stem cell product, HuCNS-SC cells, in Alzheimer's disease by enabling the co and its collaborators at the University of California, Irvine, to prepare and submit an application for a "Disease Team Therapy Development Research Award." The CIRM has indicated that each Research Award will be up to $20 mln, payable over four years, to fund preclinical and IND-enabling activities with the aim of starting human clinical trials within the four-year window. What might be getting people's attention for GERN is the fact that the CIRM has also indicated it plans to approve and fund Research Awards in the summer of 2012. StemCells, Inc. was one of only four companies awarded a disease team planning grant. However, STEM is not moving on this news.

Also of note is a wire report about a clinical trial to inject stem cells into the brains of patients disabled by stroke that has been cleared to progress to the next stage after the treatment raised no safety concerns in the first three candidates. ReNeuron Group (trades on the LSE under the ticker RQE), the British biotech behind the trial, said the independent Data Safety Monitoring Board had reviewed safety data from its ReN001 stem cell therapy and recommended the trial advance to the higher dose. The stem cells ReNeuron uses to inject into the brains of their patient are derived from human foetuses rather than embryos, which were used in a stem cell trial to treat patients with spinal cord injuries by Geron Corp (GERN).