Make cell therapies that are ALIVE

In this week's Expert View, Lee Cooper, senior director of venture investments in health at Leaps by Bayer (BAYN: DE), provides an original framework for biotech entrepreneurs to strategically position cell therapies for competitive advantage.

Cells are the basic unit of life and are themselves living. They coordinate, construct, kill, and multiply. Using human cells as medicines is as intuitively thrilling as it is technically difficult.

We are fortunate to be witnessing a watershed year for the field of cell therapies, particularly for stem-cell derived regenerative cell therapies. In the summer and fall of 2023, unprecedented interim data were released for clinical studies of novel cell therapies treating patients with  Parkinson’s and  Type 1 Diabetes.

For Type 1 diabetes, a leading biotech company announced in October that three out of six patients in an early study for regenerative cell therapy achieved  insulin independence for six months or greater. One patient has been insulin independent for two years and counting. This is an awesome achievement.