One of the greatest roadblocks to the development of a new drug is the cost of proving the treatment. Experts estimate that it takes anywhere from $100 million to $1.2 billion to get each new drug on the market. A huge portion of the funding is used to determine that the new medication is both effective and safe. However, a new initiative that combines research breakthroughs, non-profit commitment and private sector support for regenerative medicine is dedicated to the improvement of the process.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine, Dr. Michael May founded the center in 2011 with the help of the Network of Centers Excellence program. Working alongside the pharmaceutical company, Pfizer Canada, the Center for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine developed a new fund that was created specifically for the research and innovation in the use of regenerative medicine to come up with new forms of treatment using stem cells.
According to Dr. May, “One of the most promising areas for regenerative medicine is in drug testing, and we now have the ability to augment animal testing, and sometimes replace it, with testing on real human tissue. We’ll be able to test heart related drugs on human heart tissue, and that will allow safer and more reliable testing.”
The implications go much farther than the improved development of medications in the future. For example, drugs that fail to qualify in previous trials can be evaluated again by using synthesized tissue to find out if they present more promise when tested on human tissue than the testing on animals indicates.
Even medication that displays serious complications in the majority of the population may have potential value to some patients. Using stem cells to test these drugs on human tissue provides a way to identify the individuals or groups that may benefit from drugs that are currently not being prescribed because of the safety concerns for most patients. For example, the heart problems associated with the medication Vioxx may have been detected much earlier, resulting in it only being given to patients in cases where the benefits are greater than the risks.
Even though the use of stem cells has been quite controversial in the past, especially in the United States, currently researchers are using adult stem cells from donors for individualized treatment and general investigations. The result is the possibility of testing treatments on stem cells from tissue that is developed from patients, which will make it possible for researchers to identify the stem cell therapy that is best for each individual candidate.
Dr. May said, “Scientists can derive stem cells from blood, and then turn those stem cells into heart tissue, brain tissue, or anything else required. This ability to manipulate tissue offers incredible opportunities for curing and treating any number of diseases.”






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