Unproven Stem Cell Therapies Earn Traction and Criticism

This an interesting article about the some of efforts in take advantage of Stem Cell therapies happening in China, and some of actions being taken to slow these efforts down to a responsible rate.

China urged to abandon plan to sell unproven cell therapies

David Cyranoski, Nature

An international stem-cell body says the country’s proposed law could put patients at risk.

An international group of stem-cell researchers is urging China to cancel draft regulations that would permit some hospitals to sell therapies developed from patients’ own cells, without approval from the nation’s drug regulator.

The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) sent a statement outlining its concerns to Jiao Hong, director of China’s National Medical Products Administration in Beijing, on 20 May. The society, which is based in Skokie, Illinois, represents more than 4,000 scientists, clinicians and ethicists around the world.

“We are deeply concerned that China’s newly proposed regulations will provide incentives for hospitals to market unsafe and ineffective interventions directly to consumers. This has the potential to harm the people of China, undermine public health and discredit the international standing of the Chinese regenerative medicine community,” warns the statement, which was signed by society president Doug Melton.

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Be Your Own Fountain of Youth: Using Your Cells for Regenerative Medicine

Chasing the Holy Grail of Cell Therapy

Helen Albert, Labtech.eu

Be Your Own Fountain of Youth: Using Your Cells for Regenerative Medicine

Biotech entrepreneur Darrin Disley, ex-CEO and co-founder of the successful Cambridge gene editing biotech Horizon Discovery, has a new quest — creating the perfect cell therapy. He spoke to me about his position as CEO of new biotech Mogrify and why he thinks now is a good time to get into cell therapy.

Following the meteoric rise of Horizon Discovery from a small startup in 2007 to a company of 500 people and a market cap of more than €445M, Disley decided to step down as CEO of the gene editing company in February 2018. After taking a year off to travel and “get fit and healthy” he is now back in Cambridge and firmly back on the biotech scene to head up a new cell therapy biotech.

Mogrify, which has recently raised a seed round of €3.3M to kick start its technology development, specializes in transforming one type of cell into another. The key difference from other cell transformation methods is that the company can find the chemical recipe needed to flip one adult cell into another adult cell type, without transforming it into a stem cell first.

“If you could take a cell from one part of the body and turn it into any other cell at any other stage of development for another part of the body, you effectively have the Holy Grail of regenerative medicine,” enthused Disley.


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