BCRT comes at an opportune time, says Chris Mason, chair of regenerative medicine bioprocessing at University College London and president of the RMC executive committee. There are signs that the cell therapy field is maturing. Over 2,700 ongoing clinical trials and over 1 million patients have already been treated with some type of cell-based therapy, a benchmark that qualifies regenerative medicine as an official industry, he says. The cell therapy market is expected to grow from $2.7 billion this year, to $5.1 billion in 2014, he adds.
Moreover, traditional pharma and biotech companies are increasingly exploring opportunities in adult stem cell therapies. Last year, Dublin-based Shire paid $750 million to acquire Westport, Connecticut–based Advanced Biohealing, which became the center of Shire's regenerative medicine research. In 2010, Frazer, Pennsylvania–based Cephalon purchased a 20% stake in Melbourne, Australia–based Mesoblast to develop therapies based on adult mesenchymal precursor stem cells (Nat. Biotechnol. 29, 97, 2011)—Teva later bought Cephalon for $6.8 billion in 2011. In 2008, Genzyme and Osiris partnered up to develop Prochymal and Chondrogen adult stem cell treatments for inflammatory, autoimmune and cardiovascular indications, and for arthritis in the knee. Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis and several other multinational companies have also struck up partnerships to develop cell therapies in recent years.
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