Stem cells as an emerging paradigm in stroke 3: enhancing the development of clinical trials.

Cell-based therapy continues to grow as a new field to explore investigational treatments for stroke. Leaders from academia and industry convened an inaugural meeting in 2007 with members of the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to generate consensus-based guidelines on the development of cell therapies for stroke, entitled “Stem Cells as an Emerging Paradigm in Stroke” (STEPS).1 These guidelines focused on preclinical studies that are considered important as part of a development program to support clinical testing of cell therapies. The STEPS meeting also provided recommendations on the conduct of early-stage clinical trials. Given the rapid advances in the field, a second meeting was held in 2009 to update and expand these guidelines, which were published as STEPS 2.2 In December 2011, investigators in academia, industry leaders, and members of the National Institutes of Health and FDA gathered at a third meeting, STEPS 3, to discuss emerging data on the mechanisms of action of cell therapy, the barriers to successful translation from animal models to patients, and the design of current clinical trials for acute and chronic stroke. Since the prior STEPS meeting, there are now several active cell therapy platforms for stroke and other neurological disorders, in stages that range from preclinical to clinical trials, and with sponsors that include industry, the National Institutes of Health, and the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine. As the field continues to progress and as pilot clinical studies are starting to show safety for some cell types, it has become necessary to formulate a new set of guidelines that address topics not covered in prior STEPS publications. Specifically, the current document reflects a compilation of recommendations that focus on more advanced stages of clinical testing, as well as the testing of cell therapies in a broader …