Living Cell Technologies, an ASX-listed biotech company with operations based in New Zealand, said results of a small preliminary trial of its NTCELL therapy aimed at neuro-degenerative diseases showed the four patients with Parkinson's disease tolerated implantation and showed some improvement.

Living Cell shares soared about 17% to 7.7Ac after results of the study were released to the ASX. They have gained 54% in the past 12 months.

The trial was conducted by Dr Barry Snow, a neurologist at Auckland City Hospital, New Zealand's largest public hospital. He will present the results at the 19th International Congress of Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders in San Diego on Wednesday.

In the study, four patients with Parkinson's for at least five years had the therapy injected into parts of their brains where neural activity was substantially diminished or degenerated, the company said. They showed no adverse effects or inflammation and all four "experienced sustained improvement in clinical features" 26 weeks after implantation, based on neurological rating scales and questionaires, it said.

A larger study aimed at evaluating NTCELL's potential as a disease-modifying treatment, will begin in the fourth quarter of the year.

"The positive clinical response observed in this small study of four patients is encouraging and I look forward to evaluating efficacy in a larger study," Dr Snow said in a statement. "Currently, clinicians are able to manage only symptoms in patients with Parkinson's disease as there are no disease-modifying treatments available that can reverse the underlying progressive degeneration of neurons in the brain."

NTCell therapy is delivered in a capsule of "neonatal porcine choroid plexus cells" that are extracted from "a unique herd of designated pathogen-free pigs bred from stock originally discovered in the remote sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands."

Living Cell said choroid plexus cells are "support" cells for the brain and secrete cerebro-spinal fluid, or CSF, which "contains a range of factors that support nerve cell functions and protective enzymes that are crucial for nerve growth and healthy functioning." After implantation, NTCELL "functions as a neuro-chemical factory producing CSF and secreting multiple nerve growth factors that promote new central nervous system growth and repair disease-induced nerve degeneration while potentially removing waste products such as amyloids and proteins," the company said.

Living Cell said no immuno-suppressive drugs were used in the transplants because the capsules are given a proprietary coating that protects them from the patient's immune system.

The company also has a cell therapy called Diabecell, also derived from pigs, which is aimed at people with type 1 diabetes.

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(BusinessDesk)