Teaneck Coronavirus: Hospital Treats Patient With Placenta Cells

TEANECK, NJ — Doctors at Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck on Saturday tried their hand at a new experimental treatment researchers believe could help boost the health of patients suffering from the new coronavirus.

NJ.com reported a 49-year-old patient at the hospital, who has been on a ventilator since March 20, was injected with cells gathered from a placenta in hopes he will make a recovery.

According to the report, the cells were gathered from the birth of a healthy child in Maryland and shipped to New Jersey on Friday. The cells were injected into the man's muscles.

Clinical researcher Dr. Ravit Barkama told Fox Business on Tuesday that the treatment aims to counter a "cytokine storm" caused when the virus begins to affect tissues in the lungs.

"What these cells might do is they might calm down the storm, which causes a lot of harm, puts patients into major respiratory failure and often requires ventilation and mechanical respiration," Barkama told Fox Business.

The treatment is developed by Israel-based Pluristem Theraputics, which said in a news release on April 7 that of six ICU patients on ventilators, four showed respiratory improvement and three were in the advanced stages of being weaned from ventilators after being given Pluristem’s PLX cell treatment.

Celularity Inc., a clinical-stage company based in Somerset County, got FDA approval in early April to use a similar cell therapy in patients with COVID-19.

The company is in the process of conducting a clinical study of up to 86 patients with COVID-19 to see if cells taken from human placentas can be used to improve the health of patients with the new coronavirus.

"We are hopeful to contribute to flattening the COVID-19 curve, expanding on the promising early results we've seen in our clinical studies in devastating cancers to patients with coronavirus" Dr. Robert Hariri, Celularity founder, chairman and CEO, said in a statement.