Geron (GERN) is strutting its stuff.
The California-based Biotechnology company kicked off a busy week — which includes a big cancer-related conference — with news of a surprising discovery that could help paralyzed patients down the road. The company said on Monday that it has taken an early step toward establishing the safety of its future treatment for spinal cord injuries.
Specifically, Geron said its GRNOPC1 stem-cell-based treatment for spine injuries evades direct attack by the human immune system. This unexpected finding could mean that GRNOPC1 recipients will require far smaller doses of antirejection drugs, which can cause serious side effects, than patients who undergo organ-transplant operations.
“Because GRNOPC1 cells are allogenic, it was expected that they would be recognized and destroyed by multiple immune-rejection modulators,” Geron CEO Thomas Okarma stated on Monday. “This isn’t the case. … The results imply that our cell-based therapeutic, unlike traditional solid organ transplants, is minimally recognized by the human immune system.”
Notably, Geron said, normal human antibodies never attempted to kill GRNOPC1 cells in serum samples provided by eight out of 10 patients. Moreover, the company said those antibodies destroyed only 10% of the GRNOPC1 cells in the remaining two patients.
Geron’s stock recently was up 2% to $8.84.
WBB Securities analyst Stephen Brozak portrays the development as “very good news” for Geron and the patients the company hopes to help.
“Events like this one would seem almost counterintuitive,” Brozak says. “But in some cases, you have to wipe out the typical expectations you would normally see when testing a new type of product. … This is not like a traditional pharmaceutical discovery; this is ‘brave-new-world’ stuff.”
Brozak’s firm has a strong buy recommendation on Geron’s stock. The firm has no position in the stock itself and has provided no investment banking services to the company over the past 12 months.
While shares were gaining strength Monday, Geron investors are hoping for an even bigger breakthrough later in the week. They are looking for the company to offer positive updates on its key cancer treatment — which Geron hopes will lead to a cure for the deadly disease — at the Pan-Pacific Lymphoma Conference in Hawaii this week.
In anticipation of good news, investors pushed Geron’s stock toward $10 a share late last month. The stock has since lost some ground, however, due to recent progress in nonembryonic stem cell research and fears that hopes for Geron could be overblown.
But Brozak, for one, remains a true believer.
“Geron is the leader in the embryonic stem cell field,” Brozak says. “And today’s announcement is totally in keeping with that leadership position.”
By Melissa Davis
Senior Writer
