Cell therapies are integral to regenerative medicine: a swiftly advancing sector bearing the long-standing promise of revolutionizing health care as we know it. Unlike drugs that merely relieve symptoms, cell-based treatments possess curative potential by delivering a dynamic, living product to both counteract the underlying disease cause and promote regeneration. Healthy cells derived from either the patient or a compatible donor, once transplanted, can retain their ability to divide, migrate, differentiate and produce biological factors – mechanisms that have been shown to create lasting, transformative effects in an ever-widening spectrum of clinical conditions.
Regenerative medicine has been hailed a new era in medicine, with 2017’s US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of the CAR-T immunotherapeutics Kymriah (Novartis) and Yescarta (KITE Pharma) creating a new wave of excitement and activity in the industry. This has been elevated by a steady stream of positive clinical trial data from emerging cell therapies, for conditions from cancer and diabetes to neurodegenerative disorders.
