About Regenerative Medicine
What is Regenerative Medicine?
Regenerative Medicine replaces or regenerates human cells, tissue or organs, to restore or establish normal function (Mason & Dunnill). Leveraging important discoveries in stem cell science and tissue engineering, the field of regenerative medicine has grown worldwide responding to many difficult diseases such as diabetes and stroke and to conditions such as damage to the nervous system to establish therapies. Further, there is an overwhelming and unarguable health economic driver to cure such diseases and conditions.
Here is an extract from the Alliance for Ageing Research in the USA:
More than 80 percent of health care spending is for people with chronic conditions. Health expenditures are already skyrocketing and are expected to reach $16 trillion by 2030. The only current defense between this growing “age wave” and an already overburdened health care system is the hope that medical research breakthroughs and new technologies can remake the experience of chronic disease—and remake it quickly.
Source: http://www.agingresearch.org/content/article/detail/826
Here in the UK many organisations including regener8 are working hard to focus our scientific, medical and industry excellence to make a real difference to patients.
Regenerative Medicine Encompasses:
- Cell therapy
- Tissue engineering
- Regenerative drugs
- Devices
The UK hosts significant industry activity in regenerative medicine field, including many in the northern cluster:
- Pharma (Astra-Zeneca)
- Medical Devices (Smith & Nephew and Johnson & Johnson)
- Biotech SMEs (Renovo and ReInnervate)
