Cash-saving stem cell therapy gives hope to heart failure patients

Groundbreaking stem cell treatment pioneered in the UK is ready for its final trial before being rolled out on the NHS. But without funding from government, despite the trial making economic sense, campaigners are being forced to raise £10million themselves, reports KAREN ROCKETT

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Stem cell therapy pioneered in the UK for heart failure could save up to a million patients passing away prematurely. And there is now compelling evidence the treatment could help deliver major health gains for dying patients and long-term savings for the NHS.

Plans for a phase-three trial, the final hurdle before the new therapy can be rolled out, have been announced by the Heart Cells Foundation and St Bartholomew's Hospital in London, home to the UK's only compassionate treatment unit for heart failure patients with no remaining treatment options.

Professor Anthony Mathur, clinical director for interventional cardiology at Barts, said: “We are leading the way here in the UK and this is the only unit of its kind as far as I am aware in the world. ‘The trial is for patients who have exhausted all other conventional treatment options and we are finding it is successful in 70% of cases, giving those with very little hope many more years of healthy living.”

‘A new economic analysis by the York Health Economics Consortium confirms that intracoronary bone marrow-derived stem cell therapy provides exceptional value for money, giving patients longer, healthier lives at a cost well below the standard NHS threshold. Yet campaigners are still being forced to raise the money for it themselves.

Jenifer Rosenberg, chair and founder of the Heart Cells Foundation, has a very personal reason to be involved after her late husband Ian benefited from the treatment.

“Ian was 66 when his heart began to fail. He was a very active man, so full of life, so it was devastating for us to be told that there was little or nothing that could be done,” said Jenifer, from St John’s Wood, London.