Investors rain NIS 5.2 million down on BrainStorm to finish clinical trials

Successful animal trials have assured Petah Tikva-based biotech company BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics NIS 5.2 million in funding to complete pre-clinical trials for the treatment of ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease). The company, which is traded in the United States, develops adult stem cell technologies and therapeutics for neural diseases such as ALS and Parkinson's disease. It expects to begin phase I clinical studies on humans in 2010.

The new funding includes a prestigious grant from the Israeli government's Office of the Chief Scientist of NIS 1.7 million, with the remainder of the sum provided by the firm's controlling shareholder, ACCBT.

The investments were approved after a series of animal trials conducted in Israel over the past year and a half that proved the efficacy of BrainStorm's unique technology for transforming stem cells into injectable nerve cells with the aim of curing ALS sufferers.

Tens of thousands of people are afflicted with ALS, and development of a therapy that can halt nerve damage or slow muscle atrophy will open up a market estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars.

The trials were led by Professor Eldad Melamed, former Head of Neurology at Rabin Medical Center, and cell biologist Dr. Daniel Offen, head of the Neuroscience Laboratory at the Felsenstein Medical Research Center of Tel Aviv University, on whose research the patent is based. The patent itself is jointly owned by BrainStorm and the Tel Aviv University.

The results of the trials, which were conducted at laboratories in Petah Tikva and Tel Aviv University, lead the firm's management to its decision to begin human trials in 2010, focusing on ALS.

The successful animal trials led ACCBT, which is owned by the firm's president Chaim Lebovits, to the decision to invest an additional $1 million for $0.12 per share - a premium of about 100% on the company's market price in the U.S.

Lebovits has invested a total of $5 million in BrainStorm. The Office of the Chief Scientist decided to continue to support the company for the third consecutive year, for a total of NIS 4.7 million.