Commercialisation

Regenerative medicine therapies will potentially change our approach to treatment of a wide range of conditions from neurological disorders such as Alzheimers, Parksinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis, to infectious diseases suchs as AIDS. Additionally, regenerative therapies will offer the opportunity to repair damaged tissues as in spinal cord injury or following myocardial infarction or stroke. At present, most work in this area is being conducted in the conventional academic and clinical research environment, which does not have the resource to support the development of therapeutic products through to delivery to patients. To fully serve the anticipated multi-billion dollar cell therapy market, envisaged by most analysts, commercialisation of products and processes will be required, and this is being exemplified within SSCN, with a growing company base in stem cells and regenerative medicine.

Regenerative Medicine

Conventional medicines have long relied on the intervention of the pharmaceutical industry to deliver costly development programmes, manufacturing capacity and clinical testing of drugs, and this has led to a well defined commercialisation route and market understanding. However, the commercialisation route for regenerative medicine products is less well defined and may vary according to whether the therapy is:

  • A cell therapy transplanted into patients
  • A drug stimulating endogenous repair
  • A transplanted cell or device containing cells which stimulate or facilitate repair

All three approaches are being taken in clinical research centres in Scotland, and as part of the SSCN’s role in the commercialisation of these, we have undertaken a Roadmapping exercise which has led to a series of workshops and discussion forums looking at our capabilities and how they constitute the value chain in Scotland.

The SSCN Value Chain (Capabilities)

SSCN Value Chain

Scottish Companies

Companies active in the field in Scotland include:

Angel Biotechnology:

contract manufacturing cell therapy products for clinical trials

Roslin Cells:

Producing clinical grade pluripotent stem cells and working with partners to define growth media and factors for such stem cells

Cellartis:

Producing well defined, high quality stem cells for drug discovery programmes and cell therapies.