The early hope that stem cell therapy would make the paralyzed walk, the blind see and cure diabetes have given way to a long list of failures, highlighted by early stem cell champion Geron Corp. abandoning the field in 2011.
But two small companies, Athersys Inc. and Mesoblast Ltd., are beginning final stage trials in hundreds of patients that they — along with loyal investors — say could change the course of devastating stroke and heart failure.
Both have overcome major hurdles to manufacturing stem-cell treatments on a large scale that are off-the-shelf products derived from healthy donor bone marrow and do not face immune system rejection issues.