Advanced Cell Therapy is defined as “all therapies in which cells are more than minimally manipulated”, for the treatment of a variety of diseases.
Data shows that the number of cell therapies from 2016 – 2017 is rapidly growing. In 2016, the number of trials registered was 582 worldwide. We are only in the first half of 2017 and 315 trials have been registered already. This is “a modest 8% increase in the average number of trials per month.”
Almost all the 2017 trials registered thus far can be categorized as either Immunotherapy or Regenerative Medicine. Immunotherapy is “the treatment of disease by inducing, enhancing, or suppressing an immune response” while regenerative medicine is the “process of replacing, engineering or regenerating human cells, tissues or organs to restore or establish normal function”.1
Immunotherapy trials were 51% of the total in 2016 and so far comprise 53% of the trials in 2017. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) were the number 1 cell type used and count for 48% of the regenerative medicine trials. MSC can be found in a variety of sources including umbilical cord tissue.2
We are only halfway into 2017 and have already seen a rapid increase in advanced cell therapies giving hope for new treatments for diseases.
For more information about Cell Therapy Trials, visit Parent’s Guide to Cord Blood
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunotherapy,https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regenerative_medicine
- Parent’s Guide to Cord Blood, Cell Therapy Trials Growth from 2016 to mid-2017, https://celltrials.org/news/cell-therapy-trials-growth-2016-mid-2017