Industry updates with Dusko Ilic: November 2021

It came as no surprise that the Cambridge (UK) start up bit.bio will be successful in Series B. The US$103 million funding will accelerate the clinical development of the company’s proprietary cell coding technology opti-ox^TM – a breakthrough gene engineering approach that enables unlimited batches of any human cell to be manufactured consistently at scale through direct reprogramming of stem cells.

New and existing institutional and strategic investors in the Series B round, thus far, include Arch Ventures (IL, USA), Charles River Laboratories  (MA, USA), Foresite Capital (CA, USA), National Resilience (CA, USA), Metaplanet (Tallinn, Estonia), Puhua Capital (Hangzhou, China) and Tencent (Shenzhen, China). Congratulations!

Redefining MSC

Years ago, in stem cell biology the abbreviation MSC meant mesenchymal stem cells. Since mesenchymal stem cells are not a uniform population of the cells and not all cells are stem cells, the abbreviation was redefined as mesenchymal stromal cells. Not everyone was happy with this. To avoid stepping on someone’s toes with two very opinionated groups of scientists, the definition mesenchymal stromal/stem cells started to be used more often.

However, as in horror movies, just when you think that this is end, the main character springs to life again. Longeveron (FL, USA), a clinical stage biotechnology company, introduced a new term: bone marrow-derived medicinal signaling cell (MSC). Here we go!

If we only read about one story this month, what should it be?

Booming business

Leigh Turner, Executive Director of the University of California, Irvine, Bioethics Program (USA), has reported in Cell Stem Cell that in March 2021, 1,480 US businesses operating 2,754 clinics were selling purported stem cell treatments for various indications. In 2016, he and Paul Knoepfler found 351 US businesses engaged in direct-to-consumer marketing of stem cell interventions offered at 570 clinics. In only five years, more than four times as many businesses that are not US FDA-approved and lack convincing evidence of safety and efficacy are selling stem cell treatments to potential patients.