Limitless starting materials for large-scale manufacture of MSCs — what does the future hold?

Free-to-access Pharmaceutical Bioprocessing editorial on large-scale manufacture of mesenchymal stem cells, written by Kilian Kelly (Cynata Therapeutics, VIC, Australia)

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are multipotent cells found in a range of mammalian tissues. There has been significant therapeutic interest in MSCs, owing to their multipotency, secretome, immunoregulatory properties and their ability to be used as an off-the-shelf product, as they do not cause an immune response. However, at present, most clinical trials use bone marrow as the source of the stem cells, limiting the ability to manufacture at a large enough scale for commercialization: the number of MSCs that can be recovered from a tissue donation is small; and the culture expansion capacity of MSCs is limited.

In an editorial in volume 3 issue 4 of Pharmaceutical Bioprocessing, entitled ‘Limitless starting materials for large-scale manufacture of MSCs — what does the future hold?’, Kilian Kelly from Cynata Therapeutics Limited, VIC, Australia, discusses the need for large-scale manufacture of MSCs in order to bring potential therapies closer to patients, and how pluripotent stem cells could be used as a source of MSCs instead of tissue donations.

Read the full, free-to-access editorial here.