Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction (HFPEF) affects 3 million in the U.S alone. It is a condition where the heart muscle becomes so stiff that the pumping chambers can’t properly fill with blood.
Even though the heart’s ability to contract remains normal, its inability to fill with blood can lead over time to fluid congestion especially in the lungs. This condition is particularly common in women and in patients who also have diabetes, obesity, or hypertension which can lead to extreme fatigue and difficulty in breathing.
To research the problem, the Department of Defense www.defense.gov awarded a $10 million grant to fund a cardiac cell therapy trial for patients diagnosed with this common but difficult to treat form of heart failure. The trial will take place at the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center www.charleston.va.gov and at the Medical University of South Carolina www.musc.edu both in Charleston South Carolina.
Michael R. Zile, MD is directing the clinical trial in Charleston, in collaboration with Cedars-Sinai www.cedars-sinai.edu investigators and with Capricor Inc. http://capricor.com a clinical-stage biotechnology company. Capricor will collaborate on various aspects of the clinical trial execution including manufacturing CAP-1002 the company’s product name for Cardiac-Derived Cells (CDC).
The grant funding will help Cedars-Sinai researchers continue to investigate how and why cardiac progenitor cells are effective in treating laboratory rats that have heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.
A key study published in March 2016, in the Journal of the “American College of Cardiology” showed that weeks after CDCs were infused, the heart pumping function returned to normal in the laboratory rats that had hypertension and heart failure.
According to Eduardo Marban, MD, PhD, Director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, “We already have good reason to believe that CDCs may be effective against a condition that currently has no approved treatments. There is an enormous unmet medical need for these patients.”