Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
A searchable database of the company's 12 000 products reveals
at least 19 products related to 'human' and 'pluripotent' search
terms.
ReproCell is a small Japanese-based company established in
2003 specifically targeting the development of tools and reagents
for use in hESC and iPSC research. One of their selling points is
that the medium used for the original work by Yamanaka was
from this company (
http://www.reprocell.net
).
Sigma-Aldrich is a large US-based multinational company that
services both the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries
with a diverse range of products, services and supplies. The
company had revenue in 2010 of US$2.3 billion from nearly
1 million customers worldwide ('Sigma Aldrich Corporate Fact
Sheet',
http://www.sigmaaldrich.com
). It also sells a variety of
products for use in iPSC research.
BioSettia is a biotechnology company based in San Diego,
California, interested in the development and commercialization
of tools for life sciences research (
http://www.biosettia.com
).
It has a range of reprogramming factors available for research.
Applied Biological Materials is a Canadian biotechnology
company that provides similar services to the life sciences
industry as the other companies listed here (
http://www.abmgood.
com
). Again, they have a range of products available to
researchers in several areas of the life sciences.
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This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the companies offering
tools and reagents for use in iPSC research. What these different
examples show, however, is that providing the basic materials for
biotechnology research is a significant business worldwide and that
competition is quite robust. Given that large pharmaceutical
companies are also interested in using iPSC technology as part of the
drug discovery process, this will further open up the supply chain for
products and processes to even larger markets (Webb, 2010).
A business model based on the supply of tools to the biotechnology
industry was originally seen in the early 1980s to be a low-cost and
expedient means of generating revenue in an industry where product
