While most states are in a race to stimulate their economy by throwing hundreds of thousands and even billions of dollars into unethical and unproven research involving the use and destruction of human life the market for adult stem cells is multiplying rapidly and investors are taking notice. From the Chicago Tribune:
A gathering known as the Stem Cell Summit might sound so controversial it would need a steely moderator, or even police protection, so politically delicate is the science of using embryos in medical research.
But this affair at the Hilton New York on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan was all business because while the research community remains interested in embryonic stem cells, these days the focus is on the potential uses of adult stem cells, where it turns out that significant progress is being made away from the political spotlight.
Progress that is helping human patients in several clinical trials today:
“About 11,000 people have been treated in the U.S. with stem cell products in the last two years,” Robin Young, a financial analyst who follows the stem cell industry, told more than 250 institutional investors and Wall Street firm representatives at the summit in New York last month. “Virtually all of the therapeutic stem cells that are or will soon be commercialized are adult stem cells,” Young said.
Yes, the United States is treating patients with stem cells, isn’t that the goal of stem cell research?:
“One of the pieces of rhetoric you hear all of the time is that the U.S. is far behind in stem cell research because of this or that but the fact is, we are not only the furthest along in the U.S., but the world,” said Randal Mills, chief executive of Osiris Therapeutics Inc., who some call the Bill Gates of the stem cell industry…
“We are practicing cellular therapy today and people wouldn’t be alive if it were not for these therapies,” said Kenneth Giacin, chief executive of StemCyte, which manages a cord blood cell bank and database for patients needing a transplant.
Not only that, but the ACS research business is booming. Osiris’ Osteocel, which is a bone marrow treatment that stimulates bone growth, saw their sales jump 83% in the last year and StemCyte Inc. is seeing its revenue grow 50 to 70 percent annually.
We may not exactly be “leading the world” in ASC research as Mr. Mills suggests, there are still plenty of people leaving the country such treatments. But more and more American scientists and investors are picking up on this truly life saving area of research and successfully working together to fund and discover new uses for these amazing stem cells. If only our politicians and news media would pay attention and let go of their obsession with research that destroys human life with little to no progress to show for itself.
Read more about these and other stem cell companies and their plans for future clinical trials to develop treatments for heart failure and breast reconstructive surgery.
More:
ABC News Medical Minute: Stem Cell Research Grows Up (video)
“A Cellular Approach”
ASC vs. ESC research scorecard
Umbilical Cord Blood Stem Cells Help Brain Function in Mice
States Take Sides on Stem Cell Research
5 Comments on “The Real Booming Stem Cell Business”
I read your article and then went to see who you were. I loved your testimony. Keep the faith. There are some really good things in the future for those who trust in Him. It’s great to see your attitude. Let’s keep in touch. Our company is on it’s way on several projects, none that are into clinical trials yet, be we hope to go down that road. We were at the stem cell summit in New York. Greg
Thank you for a wonderful report. Just one thing I wish to take issue with. America is far from the lead in the world as the corporate promoters would have you believe.
A few truths:
One of the reasons they get away with it is that USA media, commenting on a few heart clinical trials, constantly lie and proclaim them as “breakthroughs” and “discoveries.” when all they are doing in these trials is taking a tiny step beyond what Brazil, Hong Kong and Germany started in 2001 and published in 2003.
Are they doing it because the embryonic hustlers, lying every time they write a word, have a gullible public believing that their cures will come pouring out of the pipeline the day after Bush leaves the White House?
China and India are each a decade ahead of the USA, currently improving the lives of patients not even being considered in the USA: ataxia, Parkinson’s, stroke, ALS, spinal cord injury parapligics, autism(!) etc. etc. Imagine, Lou Gehrig’s Disease is being treated on three continents with some degree of success, but NOT in any country that ever heard of Lou Gehrig!
While you and I may not entirely agree on the abortion issue, I give you this gift for your files:
Here are the words of one of Great Britain’s eminent embryonic researchers:
“THE BEST ESTIMATES OF THE EMBRYONIC SCIENTISTS IN OUR OWN UNIVERSITY IN NEWCASTLE IS THAT EMBRYONIC STEM CELLS MAY NOT BE ABLE TO HELP PEOPLE THIS SIDE OF 50 YEARS. THAT’S MY LIFETIME. AND THAT’S WORRYING. WE CAN’T WAIT THAT LONG.”
— Professor Colin McGuckin, professor of regenerative medicine at Newcastle University, UK and one of Britain’s leading embryonic researchers.
Don Margolis
http://www.donmargolis.com
On a completely different subject:
I have been invited by the world’s leading stem cell doctor for Spinal Cord Injury to attend a conference on the subject in Greece in early May.
Dr. Carlos Lima also invited me to watch an American be treated in Portugal in late May. Hopefully this patient will, over time (4-5 years) regain bladder control, use his arms to push himself up at his wheelchair, then gain control of upper body, and, hopefuly, join other of Dr. Lima’s patients and walk with the aid of a walker.
I can hardly wait. Be assured I will send daily reports on both visits to the editor of my blog.
Don Margolis
http://www.donmargolis.com