Bellicum Pharmaceuticals Announces Clinical Hold on BPX-501 Clinical Trials in the United States

Bellicum Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:BLCM), a leader in developing novel, controllable cellular immunotherapies for cancers and orphan inherited blood disorders, today announced that the Company has received notice from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that U.S. studies of BPX-501 have been placed on a clinical hold following three cases of encephalopathy deemed as possibly related to BPX-501.
As quoted in the press release:

Bellicum is awaiting formal communications from the FDA to determine the requirements for resuming studies, and will be working closely with the FDA to address their questions. The FDA clinical hold does not affect the ongoing BP-004 registration trial in Europe.
Encephalopathy has been reported in the allogeneic stem cell transplant literature. Risk factors for encephalitis/encephalopathy after allogeneic stem cell transplants include prolonged immunodeficiency, selected medications, infections, and inflammatory processes such as graft versus host disease.

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