Will 2017 be the year of Cell Therapies?

Here is the intro to a piece I published earlier this week on the Huffington post (click here for the whole article)

While 2016 may not go down as a lot of people’s favorite year, one development most people will agree to put a positive check mark beside is the near-unanimous passing of the 21st Century Cures Act in the United States.

In the last breaths of its tenure, the Obama Administration was able to bring both sides of Congress, the patient community and industry lobbyists together in a consensus on what was needed to drive better, faster medical innovation in the years to come.  Faster cures to future patients.

There are a lot of reasons to be pleased with the many provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act but as the CEO of a cell therapy company, RepliCel Life Sciences Inc., I’ll focus this brief post on the area in which I’ve dedicated most of my professional life.

Out of the spotlight of the more prominent provisions of the Act, is a section pertaining to what I predict will be a growing but eventually radical boost to the development of regenerative medicines such as “cell therapy, therapeutic tissue engineering products, human cell and tissue products, and combination products using any such therapies or products”.

Regenerative medicine is the idea that we can use cells or tissue from a patient or donor and do something more therapeutically significant for patients suffering from disease or conditions than we can do with drugs or other therapies.  This next pillar of medicine dares to cure not just slow disease progression or reduce symptoms.

The 21st Century Cures Act promises not only foster the development of such therapeutic products but presents, I believe, exciting reasons to re-look at investing in cell therapy and other regenerative medicine companies.  

 Here are four such reasons:

Click here for the remaining article on Huffington Post