BusinessWeek Magazine Features Adult Stem Cell Therapy Patient Calvin Miller

The first private patient to receive VesCell adult stem cell therapy, Mr. Calvin Miller, was featured in BusinessWeek magazine this week: Biotech, Finally

It’s great to see adult stem cell therapy in a magazine such as BusinessWeek but unfortunately, the article mentioned neither TheraVitae nor VesCell. It said that Dr. Amit Patel from The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center treated Calvin during a clinical trial with adult stem cells harvested from bone marrow. Dr. Patel occassionally works with Cardiologists in Bangkok in purely advisory and superviory roles, but Calvin has not participated in any of Dr. Patel's trials.

The article incorrectly stated that the stem cells utilized in Calvin’s case were harvested from his bone marrow.

Actually, they were harvested from about 250 cc of blood that was drawn from Calvin’s arm. The stem cells were expanded in TheraVitae’s laboratory in Israel, couriered back to Thailand and then implanted into one of his coronary arteries via catheter. This made Calvin the first private heart patient in the world to be treated with autologous adult stem cells harvested from peripheral blood as far as I know.

I have been in correspondence with BusinessWeek Magazine regarding these issues and I hope to see my letter to the editor in this week’s upcoming issue. I’d also like to point out that BusinessWeek has been very responsive to my emails over the past week.

Thank you, BusinessWeek.