Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
collected from a woman who later died of cervical cancer in 1951
(Landecker, 2007). Cell lines have been in routine use in clinical
medicine ever since, often providing a source of disease-specific cells or
normal cells to test drug reactions. Human embryonic, adult and
induced pluripotent cell lines are both banked and sold by a number of
companies worldwide. For small companies looking at generating
income within a shorter time frame than the development of cell-based
therapies, producing and selling cell lines to other researchers is one
option. Cellular Dynamics International (
http://www.cdi.com
), for
example, sells a number of induced pluripotent stem cells at this stage.
1.3.3 Storageandtechnologysystems
Although not a direct stem cell product as such, techniques for
isolation, growing, testing, directing differentiation, storage and
transport of certain stem cell products have been produced to cater
to the stem cell industry. Stem cell banking is a huge growth area,
with a number of banks for different types of cells established
worldwide. There are public and private banks, for both embryonic
and adult stem cells. Cord-blood banks are perhaps the most prolific,
with one cord-blood bank in North America, Progenitor Cell
Therapy, arguing that their emphasis on good manufacturing
practice (GMP) as well as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
mandated good tissue practice (GTP) that all banks must have gives
them a market edge for future clients who want to use Progenitor
Cell Therapy storage and processing when they come to do clinical
grade research (
http://progenitorcelltherapy.com
). Progenitor Cell
Therapy also offers on-site manufacturing and consultancy services.
1.3.4 Off-the-shelfproducts
Some success has been achieved with developing off-the-shelf
products for human consumption. Although no products are
available for clinical applications yet, Mesoblast (
http://www.
mesoblast.com
) have had some good clinical trial results so far that
