The scene is not from a horror movie; it happened to Max Truex, a former Olympic runner who suffered from Parkinson's disease. The case sent a chill through the scientific community when it came to light 15 years ago and typifies some of the hurdles researchers have faced while trying to bring stem cell therapies to the market.

Now, it appears, their efforts are closer than ever to paying off.

Dozens of adult stem cell treatments are moving through clinical trials and showing early success, raising hopes that some could reach the market within five years.

"It will only take a few successes to really change the field," said Gil Van Bokkelen, chief executive of Athersys Inc and chairman of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine. "As you see things getting closer and closer to that tipping point, you're going to see a frenzy of activity take place."

Many of the trials focus on heart disease and inflammatory conditions, some of the biggest markets in medicine. The cells used are derived from adult tissue such as fat, or bone marrow, thereby circumventing the ethical concerns raised by the use of cells derived from embryos.

Data for the most part remains early, but as more results emerge, pharmaceutical companies are beginning to take note.

"A lot of big companies are looking to place bets on some Phase II products once that data has been confirmed," said Paul Schmitt, managing partner at venture capital firm Novitas Capital. "Even now they're attending all the medical meetings and talking to all the stem cell companies."

Venture funds like Novitas are taking different approaches to playing the emerging field. Novitas invested $4 million in Amorcyte Inc, a company recently acquired by NeoStem Inc that is developing a treatment for heart disease. It is sticking to that investment for now.

By contrast, Aspire Capital Partners LLC is investing more broadly in the hope that one success will offset the inevitable failures.

"My philosophy in the stem cell space is that it's very difficult at this point to pick the winners and losers," said Steven Martin, managing member at Aspire. "We believe that over time there will be some very significant clinical progress, and valuations will improve, but we're still a long way from an approved therapy."

In the meantime, he said, "we are willing to be patient because we think the upside is tremendous."

GROWING INTEREST

Aastrom Biosciences Inc recently presented promising results from a mid-stage trial of its treatment for patients with critical limb ischemia, a disease in which blood flow to the extremities is restricted, at the American Heart Association's annual meeting. A mid-stage trial from Australia's Mesoblast Ltd showed its stem cell product reduced the rate of heart attacks and the need for artery clearing procedures by 78 percent.

"We're actually developing products now," said Timothy Mayleben, chief executive of Aastrom, which is using cells derived from a patient's own bone marrow to develop treatments for cardiovascular disease. "For the first time you are starting to see data being presented at major medical meetings."

Mesoblast has attracted more interest from investors than most. In late 2010, Cephalon Inc took a 20 percent stake in the company, which now has a market value of $2 billion -- far greater than any other pure play company in the space. Cephalon was bought this year by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd..

"Mesoblast gets this out-sized valuation by being a standard bearer in a risky field that everyone feels has a lot of promise," said Raghuram Selvaraju, an analyst at Morgan Joseph TriArtisan.

Shire Plc said in May it planned to establish a new regenerative medicine business, and kick-started it with the $750 million purchase of Advanced BioHealing Inc, which makes a skin substitute for treating diabetic foot ulcers.

Pfizer Inc, Johnson & Johnson and Roche Holding AG are members of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, a nonprofit group that promotes awareness of the field. Pfizer has a regenerative medicine unit and a partnership with Athersys. But their projects are small.

"Big pharma companies will be more interested in investing once they see data in hundreds of patients," said Schmitt.

Once that happens, there will be a land rush, he said, just as there was with monoclonal antibodies, genetically engineered molecules such as Roche's breast cancer drug Herceptin and Abbott Laboratories' rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira.

"Monoclonal antibodies were a missionary effort for many years, all through the eighties and nineties," Schmitt said. "They were called silver bullets, and eventually those bullets turned to gold."

According to GBI Research, the market for monoclonal antibodies was worth $15.6 billion in 2010 and is expected to reach $31.7 billion by 2017.

Stem cell therapy, which once promised to deliver cures for everything from Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's to spinal cord injury, has followed a similar path of enthusiasm followed by disappointment.

"There was a lot of hype around the industry early on and the industry failed to live up to that hype," said Aastrom's Mayleben.

Now stem cell therapy is gaining credibility again as real clinical data begins to emerge.

"From an investor standpoint, the time lines are long, but the opportunity to transform medicine and science is unlike anything else out there," said Aspire's Martin.

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