Two experimental drugs, which use stem cells harvested from adults instead of embryos, are showing promise against heart disease in early-stage trials.

In one study, Osiris Therapeutics found its treatment, which used stem cells from donors, helped heart attack patients recover and ease symptoms. In the other, Mytogen took cells from thigh muscles of patients with heart failure and reinjected them into their hearts. The process was safe and may have helped form new tissue.

“Adult stem calls have arrived,” says Joshua Hare, the lead author for the study on Osiris’s product and cardiology chief at University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine, tells Bloomberg News. “These results justify initiation of new, large and more definitive trials.”

Abstract for Osiris study;
ACC press release on the Osiris study;
Bloomberg News story;
TheStreet.com on Osiris.