Stem Cell News, page-462

We may have to. Therapies to treat aGvHD don't seem to fall into the terminology of "disease-modification", which I thought to be due to GvHD being (first described as) a "secondary disease", given that it is the "most frequent complication after hematopoietic cells transplantation" (which is seen to be a disease modifying therapy).

After reading more into it trying to find out why none of the ASX listed companies is using the term "disease modifying therapy" when discussing aGvHD therapies, I think it is also possible that the effect of MSCs on the underlying disease, the exact Mechanism of Action of MSCs in GvHD, is still being subject to debate.

Evidently, I still need look into it further as I wouldn't be happy myself receiving the above "reasoning" during a discussion. I suspect that it comes down to terminology, but I need to find a proper reference for that.

I re-read the original press release, and it appears that the statement made regarding the disease modifying therapy is lacking context:

[...] Current treatments for DMD have limited therapeutic potential as unfortunately none can create any new skeletal muscle or can deliver 100% full length human dystrophin. GIVI-MPC has succeeded in creating new human skeletal muscle with 100% full length human dystrophin in both mdx mice and dystrophic pigs. While there is a lot of hope with newer DMD gene therapy approaches, unfortunately to date there has been no reversal of the underlying disease as gene therapy can only deliver a fraction of the dystrophin gene (~30%) and cannot create any new skeletal muscle.

IPS HEART, founded in 2014, around cardiac and rare muscle diseases is on track to be the first IPS stem cell company to advance its first in class disease modifying therapy into human clinical trials. “Given our successful pre-IND meeting with the FDA and our ongoing developmental efforts including GMP manufacturing, we believe that we will be the first IPS stem cell company with a disease modifying therapy to advance both drugs into human clinical trials whereby all current drugs largely only provide symptomatic relief,” said Rauf Ashraf, CEO of IPS HEART. [...]

Reading the whole part above, I think he already limited the scope of disease modifying therapies to "current treatments in DMD", especially given that he finishes it off by saying, "all current drugs largely provide symptomatic relief" ("limited therapeutic potential").