California Lawsuit Charges StemCells, Inc., with Putting Patients at Risk
By David Jensen,
California Stem Cell Report
| 07. 16. 2014
Untitled Document
A former senior manager at
StemCells, Inc., which holds a $19.4 million award from the California stem cell agency, has filed a lawsuit alleging that “deficiencies in the company's cell lines put patients at risk of infection or death during clinical trials.”
The charges were contained in a suit by
Rob Williams in Alameda County court,
according to an article on Courthouse News Service written by
Elizabeth Warmerdam. Williams is suing for wrongful termination, retaliation and violation of the California False Claims Act.
According to the article, the complaint said that StemCells, Inc., of Newark, Ca., says its stem cells are safe for human transplantation. Warmerdam continued,
“Williams says he was hired as the company's senior manager of manufacturing in December 2013 to oversee its manufacturing facility, where stem cell cultures are cultivated for use in clinical trials.
“'Shortly after beginning his employment, plaintiff noted poor sterile technique, failure to adhere to current Good Manufacturing Practices in the company's manufacturing process, and substantial deficiencies in the company's Manual Aseptic Processing of HuCNS-SC (Human Central Nervous System...
Related Articles
By Gregory Laub and Hannah Glaser, MedPage Today | 08.07.2025
In this MedPage Today interview, Leigh Turner, PhD, a professor of health policy and bioethics at the University of California Irvine, unpacks the growing influence of stem cell clinics and the blurred line between medicine and marketing. He explains how...
By Gina Kolata, The New York Times | 06.20.2025
A single infusion of a stem cell-based treatment may have cured 10 out of 12 people with the most severe form of type 1 diabetes. One year later, these 10 patients no longer need insulin. The other two patients need...
By Christina Jewett, The New York Times | 06.05.2025
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently declared that he wanted to expand access to experimental therapies but conceded that they could be risky or fraudulent.
In a podcast with Gary Brecka, who describes himself as a longevity expert...
By Mike Baker, The New York Times | 02.25.2025
As investigators struggled for weeks to find who might have committed the brutal stabbings of four University of Idaho students in the fall of 2022, they were focused on a key piece of evidence: DNA on a knife sheath that...