Thanks for the insightful comments.

I agree with you that one-off scale up efforts will not serve the industry well. This may be difficult to avoid in the near term as individual companies will be attempting to build competitive advantages and we may end up with competing standards (just like BluRay and HD DVD are competing to become the DVD standard) or no standards at all. The industry is going to require big picture leaders that can look past short-term wins for long term benefit – and that is much easier said than done (and kind of hard to say with a straight face – to put it into perspective).

I will email you off-line regarding the ISCT Cell Commercialization Committee. I am interested to hear the discussions that are already going on in that circle related to these issues.

Best Regards from The Regeneration Station

Jon Rowley

I’m really enjoying the blog. You are certainly adding substance to the discussion about the regenerative medicine sector and what we need to do to accelerate its development.

I enjoyed your New Year’s resolution blog. Naturally I can’t comment about our potential acquisition but I can comment about the need for manufacturing scale-up. What I take from Chris’ article- and the point with which I certainly agree – is that the “science” of manufacturing and scale-up is being under-emphasized. While there are a few bioprocess programs like Chris’ and a few CMOs like PCT working hard on addressing scale-up technologies there is little funding and efforts are significantly distracted.

While it may be true that large-scale scale-up technologies and capacities do not yet exist, this is not a reason for therapeutic companies to seek its own solutions.

Of course this will sound self-serving but I believe that if and when companies attempt to tackle their own manufacturing and scale-up and treat it as proprietary, the field is not well served. Not only is this a costly experiment for companies with limited capital and senor management focus but it denies the opportunity to leverage scale-up technologies and resources.

We all certainly need to lobby for more funding of manufacturing and scale-up research, technologies, and projects.

Keep up the good work!

–Lee

Lee Buckler, BEd, LLB
Progenitor Cell Therapy LLC
Business Development & Marketing Communications
lbuckler@progenitorcelltherapy.com
p 778.329.2355 f 778.329.2355 m 778.996.2355
Skype: lee.buckler
21 Main Street, Court Plaza S., East Wing, Suite 304, Hackensack, NJ 07601
p 201.883.5300 f 201.883.1409
http://www.progenitorcelltherapy.com

p.s. I would like to invite you and your readers to consider joining ISCT’s Cell Therapy Commercialization Committee comprised of representatives from around 40 companies in the sector. We are working on raising the profiles of regenerative medicine in the biotech community and leveraging existing organizations like ISCT, BIO, etc to engage in addressing issues common to stakeholders in the industry.

–Lee

Lee Buckler, BEd, LLB
ISCT Cell Therapy Commercialization Committee Chair
778.329.2355 tel
lbuckler@progenitorcelltherapy.com