The therapeutic power of stem cells remains in its infancy.. Stem cells are progenitor cells that can be injected at the site of an injury to repair damage tissue. They can be used to treat inflammatory arthritis, heart attack, stroke, diabetes 2, foot ulcers associated with inflammation, and wound healing, muscle damage, orthopaedic diseases (osteoarthritis, tendinitis, rotator cuff tears), autoimmune diseases, wound healing and general reconstructive surgery. .The stem cell challenge is to manufacture high quality stem cells consistently at scale for widespread use at an affordable price.
There are two broad approaches to stem cell manufacture:
1. Centralised scale culturing to produce high quality cells that deliver consistent therapeutic outcomes in target patients, or
2. On-site, on-demand production of stem cells in the small quantity needed for therapeutic use for a specific patient.
Centralised production is a complex manufacturing process. Tissues are generally cultured using animal protein products, culturing often takes weeks to generate the required quantity for harvesting, it is hard to produce cells of uniform quality and therapeutic potency that are also free from the risk of infection and adverse immunological responses. Whilst there are many types of stem cells, culturing processes are limited to one type at a time. When stem cells are produced, packaging, transportation conditions, storage protocols and shelf-life raise other issues.
Cell Innovations has developed a device to extract and process adult stem cells from a patient’s fat tissue effectively ‘at bedside, while you wait’. It just happens that the fat tissue in the human body is highly enriched with adult stem cells and a helpful mix of other cells including immunoregulatory cells which together increase the therapeutic potency of the stem cell. This on-demand production process has the following benefits:
A. Cells are harvested on-demand fresh from the patient removing the need for cell culturing and avoiding the risk of cell mutation, changes to cell morphology, risk of infection and adverse immune response.
B. Fat tissue contains a high concentration of stem cells 100-1,000x higher than bone marrow concentrations, and have a high potency benefit.
C. Cells contain multiple different cell types that have complementary remedial functions compared to cultured cells which are limited to a single cell type.
D. Harvesting is minimally invasive, inexpensive and faster than cell culturing.
E. Minimal variation in stem cell attributes which enhances average potency and enables intravenous administration (as well as injection to the target area).
F. An affordable patient procedure that can be conducted in a outpatient clinic..
What does this mean for a patient?
Cell Innovations ‘on-demand’ device carries the expectation of providing affordable stem cell treatments for many, not just who can pay, either as an intermediate therapy or as something more permanent. Its ‘on-demand’ characteristic sidesteps the production challenges of centralised manufacture and makes it accessible in every location independent of complicated supply chains. Smart Australian ingenuity.
Triple Innovation is working with Cell Innovations to finance the commercialisation of this device through a combination of grant and equity funding and to work as part of a team to clarify strategy and crystallise business and financial data in the format funders expect.