Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
negotiating the leap from early phase start-up company to established
industry. Some of the different strategies adopted by companies in
this phase have been demonstrated through the examples discussed
in the chapters addressed to specific stem cell techniques.
One of the key issues facing companies bringing new products to
market too is the potential availability of people willing to use their
products. An important component of the emerging stem cell
markets, however, is that expected patient demand has had a pivotal
role to play in moulding the current shape of the field: from funding
for basic research to the availability of untested therapies. Observing
the future of some of the trends in patient needs identified in Chapter 2
could therefore be an important planning tool for companies
entering the stem cell market.
As Chapter 3 has shown too, there are a number of policy
instruments that governments can choose to use in building national
innovation systems that will have considerable impact on the stem
cell industries. The focus by a number of national governments on
deliberately building policy initiatives targeted at the stem cell
sciences is indicative of the level of expectation attached to this form
of direct intervention. What more general analysis of national
innovation systems shows, however, is that effective policy instruments
have a key influence on everything from establishing a company and
the availability of skilled workers to the potential revenues that
might be gained from patenting and the level of investment in
research and development. Given this, the impact on the future of the
stem cell industries of policy changes in areas related to regulation,
education, taxation, patenting and funding cannot be ignored.
Chapter 4 explores the development of adult stem cell therapies in
more detail. In the next few years it might be expected that a number
of adult stem cell-based therapies will start to enter the marketplace,
but they will not be for the high-profile illnesses and injuries that are
routinely cited in media reports about the expectations associated
with human embryonic stem cells. It might be imagined that existing
cosmetic treatments will start to become more widely available and
that new treatments for debilitating conditions associated with
ageing will start to replace the pharmaceuticals currently in use.
