After 15 years' effort, the world pioneer of human embryonic stem cell (hESC) therapy, Geron Inc., is abandoning the field and will be stopping recruitment to its ground-breaking Phase I acute spinal injury trial.

LONDON – Mesoblast Ltd. has revived hopes for the potential use of stem cells to treat heart disease, delivering positive results in a 60-patient Phase II trial of Revascor in congestive heart failure, and significantly for the allogeneic cell therapy, reporting the product did not provoke any adverse immune responses.

LONDON – The structure of a toxin produced by a bacterium that causes the tropical disease melioidosis has been solved, raising hopes that it may one day be possible to develop an inhibitor of the toxin, which could slow the progression of the disease.

CureVac GmbH entered a five-way, $33.1 million research collaboration to develop mRNA-based vaccines against undisclosed infectious disease pathogens, using its RNActive technology.

Affiris AG raised €25 million (US$34 million) in new equity funding and could land another €30 million from the same investors, to take forward its pipeline of clinical and preclinical peptide-based therapeutic vaccine candidates, which are in development for a range of neurodegenerative, cardiovascular and metabolic disorders.

DUBLIN, Ireland – Genable Technologies Ltd. raised €5 million (US$6.8) million in a Series B financing round to take forward a mutation-independent gene therapy approach for treating an autosomal-dominant form of retinitis pigmentosa (RP).

• Avraham Pharmaceuticals Ltd., of Jerusalem, raised $3 million from Yissum Research Development Co. Ltd., the technology transfer arm of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and other investors. The funding will be used for an ongoing Phase II trial of ladostigil in Alzheimer's disease and a planned study of the drug in mild cognitive impairment. Ladostigil is a cholinesterase and brain-selective monoamine oxidase inhibitor.

LONDON – Cellectis SA has completed the acquisition of Europe's leading private stem cell company, the Swedish/British Cellartis AB, owner of 30 proprietary stem cell lines, in a cash and shares deal valued at €30 million (US$41.4million).

LONDON – SEEK Ltd. released Phase II results of a challenge trial of its T-cell vaccine FLU-v against influenza, showing healthy volunteers who were vaccinated had less severe symptoms, over a shorter time, than the controls.

LONDON – Many more genes seem to be involved in the development of colorectal cancer than previously thought, a mutagenesis study in mice suggested. Around a third of the genes are already known to be mutated in human cancer, providing strong evidence that they help to drive the growth of human tumors.