Louisville firm gets $100M to help transplant patients stop taking meds

Investors are pouring $100 million into a company that's working to advance a therapy pioneered at the University of Louisville that could help people with kidney transplants avoid having to take immunosuppression drugs throughout their lives.

Talaris Therapeutics Inc., which used to be known as Regenerex, just released the results of a study in which 70% of 37 kidney transplant patients it worked with were able to be weaned off of immunosuppression treatments, thanks to a new cell therapy, according to an announcement the company made Thursday.

More than 80% of Talaris' employees are already based in Louisville, Talaris CEO Scott Requadt said. The company will probably add at least 15 to 20 additional workers over the next six to 10 months, with more local hires on the horizon.

The average life of a donated kidney is only about 15 years, and immunosuppression drugs prevent patients from rejecting the organ but also can contribute to its gradual decline in function, Requadt said this week. Side effects of those medications include high blood pressure, high cholesterol and a high risk of infection.

"They're lifesaving because they've enabled you to get someone else's organs, but they're actually toxic to the kidney," he explained.

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Dr. Suzanne Ildstad, a U of L faculty member who is also Talaris' chief scientific officer and founder, has spent years leading the development of this therapy. The technology she and her team incubated at the university was patented at U of L, and Talaris licenses it exclusively.

The new therapy essentially takes bone marrow stem cells and other cells from the organ donor and uses them for a treatment that can be given to the patient who received that person's kidney via an infusion, according to Ildstad. 

Then, she said, the patient can gradually dial down their use of immunosuppressants within 12 months of their transplant surgery, as opposed to having to take those medications for the rest of their lives.

This therapy has grown out of 30 years of research by Ildstad, as well as work her colleagues conducted under her leadership at U of L's Institute for Cellular Therapeutics.

"It's amazing to see how well the patients are doing and how grateful they are," Ildstad said. 

Their first success was a Louisville native who isn't taking immunosuppressants anymore and has stable kidney function a decade after his transplant, she said.

"He had kidney disease in his family, and so he saw what his mom and his sister had to go through," she said. "He says he feels better than he ever felt, even as a teenager when he started developing symptoms from his kidney disease."

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Requadt said Talaris' cell therapy eventually could have a positive, long-term impact on transplant patients. "I mean, the hope could be one kidney for life," he explained.

However, more research still needs to be done before this therapy could become available to a wider swath of people.

That's where the $100 million round of financing, led by Blackstone Life Sciences, can help. 

The money will make it possible for the company to start a new trial later this year to test the efficacy and safety of the therapy in a larger number of patients, Requadt said. It's the last study that should be required to obtain the necessary authorization for this treatment's use in the U.S.

If the treatment is approved, Requadt said U of L will be entitled to receive royalties from the product's sales because it owns key patents that Talaris licenses from the university.

"This cutting-edge U of L research can have a significant impact on human health," the university's president, Neeli Bendapudi, said in a statement. "This is a prime example of our ability to work with industry partners and investors to help turn innovative research into valuable new products."

The $100 million in funding also will allow Talaris to conduct two more studies to explore other potential ways to use this therapy, such as for treating autoimmune conditions, Requadt told the Courier Journal. Finally, the financing will give the company the ability to invest further in the cell processing operation it's already established in Louisville.

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Morgan Watkins: 502-582-4502; mwatkins@courierjournal.com; Twitter: @morganwatkins26. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/morganw.