Having a great idea for a stem cell therapy is the easy part. Getting it to work in the lab is tougher. But sometimes the toughest part of all is getting it out of the lab and into clinical trials in patients. That’s natural and sensible, after all we need to make sure that something seems safe before even trying it in people. But how do you overcome all the challenges you face along the way? That was the topic of one of the panel discussions at the World Stem Cell Summit in San Antonio, Texas.

Rick Blume is the Managing Director at Excel Venture Management, and someone with decades of experience in investing in healthcare companies. He says researchers face numerous hurdles in trying to move even the most promising therapies through the approval and regulatory process, only some of which are medical. Blume says:

“Great ideas can become great companies. And good Venture Capitalists (VCs) can help with that process, but the researchers have to overcome technical, funding and logistical hurdles before VCs are usually ready to move in and help.”

Of course that’s where agencies and organizations like CIRM come in. We help fund the early stage research, helping researchers overcome those hurdles and getting promising therapies to a point where VCs and other large investors are willing to step in.

Left to right: Geoff Crouse CEO of Cord Blood Registry, C. Randal Mills, President and CEO of CIRM, Rick Blume of Excel Venture Management and Anthony Atala of Wake Forest University Medical Center

Geoff Crouse, the CEO of the Cord Blood Registry, says researchers need to be increasingly imaginative when looking for funding these days.

“While Federal funding for this kind of research is drying up, there are alternatives such as CIRM and philanthropic investors who are not just seeking to make active investments but are also trying to change the world, so they offer alternatives to more traditional sources of funding. You have to look broadly at your funding opportunities and see what you want to do.”

C. Randal Mills, the President and CEO of CIRM said too many people get caught up looking at the number of challenges that any project faces when it starts out:

“The single most important thing that you need to do is to show that the treatment works in people with unmet medical needs, that it is safe. If you can do that, all the other problems, the cost of the therapy, how to market it, how to get reimbursed for it, those will all be resolved in time. But first you have to make it work, then you can make it work better and more efficiently.”

The panel all agreed that one of the areas that needs attention is the approval and regulatory process saying the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the regulatory body governing this field, needs to adjust its basic “one size fits all” paradigm.”

Mills says the FDA is in a difficult position:

“Everyone wants three things; they want fast drugs, they want cheap drugs and they want perfect drugs. The problem is you can’t have all three. You can have two but not all three and that puts the FDA into an almost impossible position because if therapies aren’t approved quickly they are criticized but if they are approved and later show problems then the FDA is criticized again.”

Often the easiest way to get a traditional drug therapy approved for use is to ask for a “humanitarian exemption”, particularly for an orphan disease that has a relatively small number of people suffering from it and no alternative therapies. But when it comes to more complex products knows as biologics, which includes stem cell therapies, this humanitarian exemption does not exist making approval much harder to obtain, slowing down the field.

Mills says other countries, such as Japan, have made adjustments to the way they regulate new therapies such as stem cells and he hopes the FDA will learn from that and make similar modifications to the way they see these therapies.

All three panelists were optimistic that the field is making good progress, and will continue to advance. Good news for the many patient advocates attending the World Stem Cell Summit who are waiting for treatments for themselves or loved ones.