Stem cell company shares get boost from NIH embryonic cell line approval — MedCity Evening Read, Dec. 4, 2009

News and notes from the day in MedCity, Ohio.

A new era in embryonic stem cell research is evolving as the National Institutes of Health has approved 13 batches of the master cells to study – using taxpayer dollars – with dozens more in the pipeline, according to Scimitar Equity blog. Bottom Line: The stem cell market is growing rapidly due to increasing regulatory approval and public acceptance. Shares of stem cell companies, such as Athersys in Cleveland, rose after the NIH announcement on Wednesday. [Editor's note: Athersys therapies are based on adult stem cells, not embryonic stem cells.]

The Senate health care reform bill looks to be even better than a free ride for the health insurance industry until 2014, the earliest date it will be effective, opines Robert Lenzer in Forbes’ StreetTalk blog. It provides no expanded health coverage and only a watered-down public option, if any — but not until four years from now, Lenzer says. That means major health insurers will enjoy four more annual enrollment periods to sign up the 31 million people who are not covered by any insurance. The Cleveland Clinic’s director of government relations, Oliver “Pudge” Henkel, weighed in on the matter: “It is unfortunate that the expanded coverage won’t take place until 2014. The American people expect reform before that. By 2014 there will be two more elections and an awful lot can happen to reverse this bill.”

“How do you end a polite exchange of niceties with someone you’ve just met at a party? Tell them that you’re an oncology nurse,” writes Plain Dealer guest columnist Susanne Ficht Bond. “Oncology nursing is not for everyone,” Ficht Bond, an oncology nurse at the Cleveland Clinic says, ”but it’s a field that I love because it allows me to work with heroes every day.”

Case Western Reserve University researchers from the School of Medicine’s Department of Nutrition have discovered two new metabolic pathways by which products of lipids and some drugs are metabolized. The findings shed new light on the mechanism of action of the “date-rape drug.” The manuscript published in the Nov. 27 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry was named a Paper of the Week, chosen chosen from the top 1 percent of articles submitted to the peer-reviewed journal.

A state-of-the-art cancer-treatment center that would create 100 jobs won’t soon be coming to Dublin, according to the Columbus Dispatch. The developer hasn’t been able to secure financing for a $180 million proton-therapy facility, and city officials plan to terminate the contract. Daniel M. Slane has until Dec. 31 to get investors onboard, but both sides say that’s unlikely to happen. Slane blames the economy and the national health-reform debate for scaring off investors.