Yesterday, May, 9th the FDA filed complaints seeking permanent injunctions in Florida and California federal courts against the two highest visibility U.S. stem cell operations. For the interested, here are the complaints.

comella

bermancomplaint

What’s in the complaints?

It’s pretty much as I said in yesterday’s post. The two complaints are substantially identical and no doubt prepared in Washington, primarily by the FDA with input from Main Justice (or vice versa).

Both entities were inspected by the FDA, after which they received 483 inspection observations indicating Good Manufacturing Practices violations and the fact that they were illegally manufacturing unapproved new drugs which makes the products adulterated and misbranded under federal law.

The clinics responded with basically the same legal argument that the FDA didn’t have jurisdiction to regulate them because they were doing a surgical procedure/just practicing medicine which the FDA cannot regulate.

The FDA then issued warning letters rejecting the lack of jurisdiction argument. That was back in late summer 2017. Since that time, both companies continued their rejection/defiance of the warning letters via public statements about the FDA’s lack of jurisdiction over their clinics’ medical practices.

It was just a matter of time.

The complaints go through the FDA standard argument that the products are drugs and biological products, and not covered by the same surgical procedure exemption (21 CFR 1271.15, which I’ve discussed in many of my previous posts:
See my post at: http://wp.me/p7pwQD-bB )

The complaint against US Stem Cell points out that the solutions the company uses to separate the fat from the stem cells and to wash the product are labeled for “research purposes only” and “not for human therapeutic use.” Ooops! (While that’s mostly just CYA on the part of the suppliers, it won’t sit well with the federal judge, and I predict, the suppliers’ limitation language will be in the judge’s final opinion.)

The complaint against California Stem Cell Treatment Center points out that its stem cell product (actually stromal vascular fraction (SVF) contains a small pox vaccine, Vaccinia Vaccine, Live, which carries a black box warning “designed to call attention to serious or life-threatening product risk, including swelling of the heart tissues, brain or spinal cord.” Yikes! Expect a lot of discussion about that in the summary judgement papers.

Both complaints relate serious adverse events associated with the products, which in the case of US Stem Cell are the notorious three cases of blindness (or partial blindness) resulting from injecting the SVF into the eyes of patients (a practice which US Stem Cell mercifully doesn’t do anymore, according to its co-owner).

So what’s next?

The good news is that there is no motion for a preliminary injunction which means that the cases will take some time, months, at least. The companies will file an answer raising all their arguments. A scheduling conference with the judge will be held, and the government will press for setting up a summary judgement briefing schedule.

The companies need to do something different, because we know how summary judgement proceedings go in this type of case; just ask Chris Centeno and the Regenerative Science folks. So defendants, try something different. Searching for a factual issue would be the place to start. There’s only heartache and loss in summary judgement in this kind of case, followed by an affirmance by the Circuit court. (Here is the legal precedent what has to be worked around, https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-dc-circuit/1656447.html )

So do something different!

Rick Jaffe, Esq.
www.rickjaffe.com
rickjaffeesquire@gmail.com