[The Electronic Times] Stem Cell Therapy "Cellgram-AMI" Effective in Restoring Heart Function in Patients with Myocardial Infarction

Myocardial infarction is a condition in which the coronary arteries surrounding the heart become blocked by a blood clot; it is known to be the leading cause of sudden death if the blocked artery is not cleared within two hours.
Cardiovascular diseases such as acute myocardial infarction are currently the second leading cause of death in Korea, following cerebrovascular disease, and represent a major cardiovascular condition that continues to rise due to the increase in ischemic heart disease.
Furthermore, chronic heart failure, which develops following a myocardial infarction, has a high prevalence and a low survival rate. As a condition requiring lifelong medication, it not only diminishes an individual’s quality of life but can also have serious social and economic consequences. In
this context, stem cell therapies have been shown to be effective in restoring cardiac function in patients with myocardial infarction.

Blood vessels blocked by myocardial infarction are reperfused through coronary artery bypass surgery. A procedure in which a catheter is inserted into the coronary artery to reach the heart’s blood vessels, followed by the injection of stem cells to regenerate already necrotic heart tissue, can restore cardiac function.
Blood is drawn from the patient’s pelvic bone, and only mesenchymal stem cells are isolated. These are then cultured externally to produce a medicinal product, after which approximately 70 to 90 million stem cells are slowly injected into the coronary artery.
This procedure is a relatively simple treatment that can be performed under local anesthesia while the doctor converses with the patient; the therapeutic agent used is “Cellgram-AMI,” a heart disease treatment developed by Pamcell that has undergone clinical trials and received approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.
Clinical trial results involving 80 participants showed that this treatment improved the heart’s ejection fraction by an average of approximately 5.9 percentage points. When converted to a percentage, this represents an improvement of about 12%.
According to cardiologists, an improvement of 5.9 percentage points is a significant figure for patients suffering greatly from impaired heart function, indicating that heart function has recovered substantially.
In addition to Cellgram-AMI, there are currently four officially approved stem cell therapies in South Korea alone that have undergone clinical trials and received approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. These therapies target myocardial infarction, Crohn’s fistula, osteoarthritis, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), respectively.

Meanwhile, PamiCell Co., Ltd., the developer of Cellgram-AMI, recently established the Kim Hyun-soo Stem Cell Clinic, a research-oriented medical institution. This clinic operates an iGMP laboratory (aseptic cell processing facility) and conducts various research projects related to cell therapy.