Skopje, 20 October 2025 (MIA) 

Darko JANEVSKI

COPD is a general name for several lung diseases, including emphysema, all of them incurable. Traditional medicine has found no cure. Its opponent, alternative medicine, is no help either. There is simply no cure. Because, to describe it in the most plastic way, in emphysema, the alveoli where oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged in the body, usually resembling a bunch of grapes, when the disease sets in, they look as if the grapes have been crushed. This damages patients' lung capacity and as the disease progresses, breathing becomes harder for them. Many reach the point of needing 24-hour oxygen support and eventually, they face death. There is no cure, as I said.

Just a few months ago, however, the global audience heard a different story from Mel Gibson in an interview with Joe Rogan. The actor, who had smoked for 45 years, was diagnosed with stage 1 emphysema, but he was cured with intravenous stem cell therapy in Panama clinic. One treatment costs about USD 40,000 and it takes several treatments (we do not know what happens to patients in the third or fourth stages of the disease). In any case, the information that some type of treatment exists has spread around the world, albeit Panama and treatments that cost USD 40-50,000 are simply unattainable for the majority of people suffering from COPD worldwide.

But then, Abdulkader Rahmo, PhD, co-founder, president and chief scientific officer of SMSbiotech, appeared from behind the veil of silence. He says he has a method for curing this fatal disease with a simple inhalation of stem cells. Excuse me? Inhale them and say goodbye to death? Yes, that's right. The first phase trials was conducted in Australia and the second phase is scheduled to begin in Cleveland in early 2026. At first glance, it seems incredible – treating COPD and incurable emphysema with inhalation? Not only that, but also treating gangrene, which currently ends in limb amputation, as well as osteoarthritis and other similar conditions. We called doctor Rahmo and this is our interview with him. Amazing.

Some 44% of adults in Macedonia are smokers and a lot of them suffer from emphysema. Can you please explain your inhalation method? It sounds better than science fiction.

What we use for that are stem cells that were not known before. They were discovered recently by us. We extract these stem cells from the blood. They are tiny cells, very small and very sturdy, very resilient. Тhese cells can stimulate other cells to grow tissue and, because they are small and very sturdy, we can nebulize them. We use a nebulizer, which creates a mist of small droplets of water that contain these cells and then you can inhale them inside your lung. When they are inside the lung, they can interact and bind to other cells and give them the message to heal the tissue and promote healthy tissue. This is how it works. 

So the small stem cells will replace damaged alveoli in emphysema? 

No. They, themselves, will not create a tissue. They will stimulate existing cells of the body, inside the lung, to grow and form alveoli, and form this healthy tissue that you need to breathe and that gets damaged when you have emphysema. So the new tissue that is formed is completely part of the host tissue. It's not foreign to the tissue. It's not something added. This is something that belongs to the patient and the host. We call it the host tissue. 

 

So you will start, at the beginning of next year, the second phase clinic trials in Cleveland, after the first phase in Australia? 

Yes. So in phase one in Australia, we finished by now two patients. These two patients are what we call sentinel patients. You experiment on the first two patients, then you run other patients. And these two patients, after treatment, they are safe because phase one is a safety study. We try to see, when these people inhale a lot of these cells foreign to the body, what happens? Are they adversely affected? Do they have adverse reactions or anything? It came out of this study that the cells do not cause any harm to the people. On the contrary, they have signs of beneficial effect to the lung. 

Because the patients are actually COPD patients. These are not healthy volunteers. These are COPD patients that are tested at phase one. 

What are your predictions? How long will it take for one patient to recover completely with your method? 

We still don't know how many times we need to treat the patients. This is still going to be explored during the trials. Not necessarily in phase one, but actually phase two and phase three, we will learn and understand the optimal number of cells to treat the lungs. 

And how long will it take to heal the patient?  

We don't know that. We still need to study the situation by experimenting on multiple patients. And besides, every patient is a little bit different. You know, this disease has different stages. You have stage one, stage two, stage three. Right? So there are different levels of the disease. We suspect that because of that, you would need different number of cells depending on the disease level. Also depending on what caused the disease, how extensive the damage is and where the location of the damage is. So all these factors tells you that you need to explore that and test on several individuals before you can make a general statement. 

How many trial phases do you need to complete the entire process? 

We have three phases. The phase one is for the safety study. The phase two is for safety and efficacy together. And then the third is geared for efficacy. It's mainly concentrated on efficacy study. 

So phase three is not something we can expect soon? 

Phase three will take about two and a half years from now to accomplish. However, before we do that, we have compassionate use applications. So even before we finish phase two and phase three, we will apply with the different governments for compassionate use applications. For example, in the United States, when they find that your drug is safe, they allow you to treat patients even before commercial use, It is approved on a basis of people who are really sick and have no other alternatives. Some countries call that early access or expanded access, but most people know it as compassionate use. So you can apply compassionate use to these serious diseases like COPD and treat the patients earlier as long as you show to the regulators that these treatments will not be harming the patient. 

Can Macedonia apply? 

Maybe. I don't know the rules in Macedonia.

 

I will try my best to convince the government to apply for this because there are a lot of people who are not aware they are suffering from emphysema and from COPD. Does your method heal other conditions like for instance, autoimmune Wegener disease?

We tested the treatment on orthopedic diseases like joint diseases, knee diseases, osteoarthritis, and tendon repair. These are items that we found the cells to be effective at treating. We actually treated three people already on that. We are going to treat more people. We had very promising results for the joint treatment at the knee. We are going to explore also for shoulders and hip treatment and maybe also disc repair, for back pain. So those all are joint diseases. They may respond all the same way, using the small mobile stem cells. By showing that you can do it in the lung and you can do it in the joint successfully, that means these cells have the ability to treat many indications that are very different. 

Autoimmune Wegener disease causes lung fibrosis. Can your treatment heal that fibrosis? 

Yeah. We are studying whether the treatment in the lung will prevent or even reverse fibrosis in the lung. So there are different iseases that cause fibrosis in the lung, including idiopathic fibrosis also. But you have also interstitial lung diseases that cause fibrosis. We need to have our first case and then go and test it on multiple people. But the fact that we can show that treating the patient with the cells in the lung is safe and can be used on humans, that will bring, later, an opportunity to test it on multiple lung indications. Even acute diseases, not just chronic diseases. Some of them could be, for example, Long COVID. Many people suffer from Long COVID. That could be also a subject of interest to this application. 

 

When you said Long COVID, can the small mobile stem cells do something about the spike protein or is the way they work different?

The way they work is they treat the damaged tissue, the fibrotic tissue. It's not that they going to attack the virus. They attack the fibroblast. They bind to fibroblasts and they change the gene expression and the attitude of these cells. They do that with multiple cells. That is the unique and different mode of action, unique for the small mobile stem cells. 

What about lung cancer? 

No. These cells are for lung regeneration. They are not suitable for fighting against cancer. No. 

In one of your previous interviews, you said that a way to measure results is by six minutes of walking without problems. What do you mean by saying "without problems"? 

The six-minute walk test is a standard test that's being used with COPD patients. They give them six minutes' time and they see how far they can walk. There is a certain level, a distance that is declared normal. After that test, they also check the oxygen level and sometimes the heart function and all that.  

After six minutes, what should the oxygen level be? 97? 98? 95? 

I can send you the exact information on what the level should be and how much of a distance you should pass. This is more clinical information. We have our clinical experts who handle that. We have a clinical research director who can give you the details on that. 

It would be kind if you sent me that because it will help many people to understand what condition they are in.

Yes. You're right. Because a lot of these COPD patients are not actually aware that they have COPD. The numbers are underestimated actually by the public and health authorities. 

How many people in the world do you think suffer from COPD?

 

In the whole world, the number is estimated to be 400 million, but I think it's an underestimation. There are maybe way more than that. Because a lot of people with stage one are not aware of the sickness. 

On the scale of deadliest diseases, COPD is fourth place in the world? 

Yes. Third or fourth place of the death causing diseases. There are three million people dying every year from COPD. Three million.

 

And, at this moment, medicine can do nothing to help. I think you are aware that your method is the only hope for those people. 

Unfortunately. So far, there is nothing that can stop the disease, nothing that can reverse the disease, and nothing that can cure the disease. The disease progresses continuously and gets worse and worse. We need to change that. So with this treatment, we're hoping that we can stop the disease, reverse the disease and hopefully cure the disease. 

Nothing can stop it? Even quitting smoking? 

No. Not even quitting smoking will stop the disease. The disease will progress. Slower without smoking but it will eventually evolve into the more severe forms. 

Do you have investors? 

Yes. We have investors that have invested millions in this company. So far, we have invested about USD 11 million into the company. Right now we're raising money for the company so your listeners can actually invest in SMS Biotech. Even if they are foreigners, they can invest in SMS Biotech. 

Does the government help you? The National Institutes of Health? 

No.

No? Why? They sent money to Wuhan, why not to you? 

(laughs) Well, the issue here is that the people who are funding us told us, "If you apply for the money from government, it takes too much time to get that money and there is a lot of bureaucracy involved. We will finance you so that you get quickly the money and you move forward with your agenda." And there is a truth to that. In fact, applying for the money takes a lot of time, getting the money takes even more time and then executing the project takes a lot of time, a lot of paperwork and all that. But we do have an agreement with the military. We are conducting research with them and we have the prospect of getting way more money from grants. We waited until we get the human data to get the grants because then they give you more money when you have human data. 

Back to the method, you said three inhalations during eight days? 

Yes, indeed. The way the trial is designed, the first inhalation like is on Monday, the second inhalation on Thursday and then the third inhalation is another Monday. So those are eight days where you get three inhalation sessions. 

How long is a session?

About half an hour. 

 

You extract stem cells from the sick person? 

No, no, no, no. These cells are extracted from a donor and we can grow these cells to a large extent so they come from a healthy donor and we can grow these cells. This is one of the things that is unique to these cells.

Will the patient's body accept cells from another? 

Yes. They will accept them because the cells have very little immunogenicity so they don't cause an immune reaction with the patients. This is what we tested also by treating the patients. Is there any immune reaction against any allergy caused by these cells? And nothing came out like that. 

Is there something you want to to add? I'm not a medical person – I have a law degree, but I am trying to do my best to introduce you to people in Macedonia. So, is there something I missed that you think is very important to add to this conversation? 

No. I just wanted to recommend that people visit our website to get more information about the subject matter. And you said it looks like science fiction, but you can trust us that we did a lot of studies. 

I trust you. That's why I called you and asked for this interview. For me, it is one of the biggest inventions in medicine in the last 50, 100 years. I'm familiar with COPD, so I know what trouble and what problems it can make for people. For me, to find a cure for emphysema and COPD is the same thing as a cure for glioblastoma or small-cell carcinoma or pancreatic cancer. When I said it is like science fiction, I meant it in a good sense.

That's fine. Many people in academia, they don't know that we exist yet. And when you start the company, you try to hide certain things until you're ready and have the patent. We have seven patents with this technology. Worldwide patents. This is a new technology. It should give hope to the people who are affected with chronic diseases, especially COPD, and definitely more than COPD. So, we can't wait until we provide this service to the people and we treat people worldwide against these really horrible diseases. 

Do you expect any problems, any obstructions from the FDA in the United States? 

I don't think that there will be much resistance toward that. When we contacted them, they were very cautious. They were afraid because there is so little known about these newly discovered cells, unlike other cells we know more about it. So, then we decided to go to Australia, and it was easier to do it there than in the United States. But once we have the safety data, I think the FDA will welcome us and will allow us to do the rest of the studies in the United States. Like for example, in the Cleveland Clinic, where scientists and researchers and physicians are waiting to test this new drug. 

 

That is one of the best clinics in United States. Am I right? 

Yes, that's correct. 

Once again, please send me that test for six minutes.

No problem. I will send it to you. I will ask a person who's an expert in lung disease, who is running our trial, Dr. Jason Kirkness, and he will send you the exact details about the six-minute walk test. 

Thank you very much and my best wishes to you and your entire team. 

My pleasure. Thank you, Darko, and I wish the Macedonian people the best of health in the future.

 

 

Who is Abdulkader Rahmo, PhD?

Co-Founder, President, CSO of SMSbiotech. Bachelor in biochemistry from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich; Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles and postdoc at a major clinical laboratory in Munich Germany.

‍As a former associate professor, he has over 30 years of experience in basic and applied research; 11 years primarily focused on SMS cell discovery, development, and technology.

Experienced in clinical laboratory medicine, GXP compliance, and biomanufacturing. Co-Founded and lead several private and public entities including the National Commission for Biotechnology where he became the head of the medical Biotechnology section.