PALO ALTO, CA, USA I August 22, 2013 I Cellular Biomedicine Group (CBMG) today announced that it has completed patient enrollment for its Phase I trial to evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of TC-DC (Tumor Stem Cell Specific Dendritic Cell) therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common type of liver cancer.

The Phase I clinical trial for TC-DC therapy for HCC is an open label clinical trial conducted with Shanghai’s PLA 85 Hospital, which is a Liver Disease Center. The trial will evaluate the safety and efficacy in lowering the incidence of tumor recurrence and metastasis by means of autologous immune cell therapy in primary HCC patients following standard tumor resection and TACE chemotherapy.

Dr. Cheng Xiang (Chase) Dai, Cellular Biomedicine Group’s VP and GM of the Autologous Products Business Unit, said, “We are pleased with this important achievement in the advancement of our therapy for liver cancer, and are on schedule to complete the Phase I trial in Q4 of this year.”

About Hepatocellular Carcinoma
Forty-five percent of the world’s HCC patients are in China, with over 300,000 new patients diagnosed every year. The therapies commonly offered to most patients are surgery and local chemotherapy, with a 2-year recurrence rate of 51% and median survival time of 13 months.

About TC-DC Therapy for Hepatocellular Carcinoma
TC-DC therapy takes a sample of the patient’s own dendritic cells, which are the ‘trainer’ cells of effecter immune cells, and a sample of the patient’s tumor stem cells, and co-cultures them together in the lab. The dendritic cells will learn the characteristics of the patient’s own tumor stem cells, and are reintroduced to the patient’s body as a vaccine, where they can ‘train’ the immune system to fight and destroy the tumor stem cells, which are the root cause of tumor recurrence and metastasis.

“One of the primary difficulties in administering effective cancer therapy is in the uniqueness of the disease; no two cancers are the same,” explained Dr. William Cao, President of CBMG, “Therefore, we source both immune and cancer stem cells directly from the patient so that each treatment is specific to each individual. In addition, rather than break down the cancer stem cell and use a portion of it, we use the whole cancer stem cell as the antigen source to stimulate the patient’s own dendritic cells.”

About Cellular Biomedicine Group
Cellular Biomedicine Group, Inc. develops proprietary cell therapies for the treatment of certain degenerative diseases and cancers.  Our developmental stem cell, progenitor cell, and immune cell projects are the result of research and development by scientists and doctors from China and the United States. Our flagship GMP facility, consisting of eight independent cell production lines, is designed, certified and managed according to U.S. standards.  To learn more about CBMG, please visit: www.cellbiomedgroup.com

SOURCE: Cellular Biomedicine Group