Fulfilling CIRM’s mission doesn’t just mean accelerating promising stem cell treatments to patients. It also involves accelerating the whole field of regenerative medicine, which involves not just research, but developing candidate treatments, manufacturing cell therapies, and testing these therapies in clinical trials.

Manufacturing and the pre-clinical safety evaluation of cell therapies are topics that don’t always receive a lot of attention, but they are essential and crucial steps in bringing cell therapies to market. Manufacturing cells that meet the strict standards for use in human trials is often a bottleneck where different methods of making pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) are used and standardization is not readily possible.

Abla Creasey, Vice President of Therapeutics and Strategic Infrastructure at CIRM, notes:

“The field of stem cell research and regenerative medicine has matured to the point where there are over 900 clinical trials worldwide. It is critical to develop a system of effective regulation of how these stem cell treatments are developed and manufactured so patients can benefit from future treatments.”

To address this challenge, CIRM has teamed up the International Alliance for Biological Standardization to host the 4^th Cell Therapy Conference on Manufacturing and Testing of Pluripotent Stem Cells on June 5-6^th in Los Angeles, California.

WHAT

The aim of this conference is twofold. Speakers will discuss how product development programs can be moved forward in a way that will meet regulatory requirements, so treatments can be approved.

The conference will also focus on key unresolved issues that need to be addressed for the manufacturing and safety testing of pluripotent stem cell-based therapies and then make recommendations to inform the future national and international policies. The overall aim is to provide participants with a road map so new treatments can achieve the highest regulatory standards and be made available to patients around the world.

The agenda of the conference will cover four main topics:

1. Learning from the current pluripotent space and the development of international standards
2. Bioanalytics and comparability of therapeutic stem cells
3. Tumorigenicity testing for therapeutic safety
4. Pluripotent stem cell manufacturing, storage, and shipment Issues

Using this “big tent” approach, speakers will exchange knowledge, experience and expertise to develop consensus recommendations around stem cell manufacturing and testing.  New data in this area will be introduced at the conference for the first time, such as a multi-center study to identify and optimize manufacturing-compatible methods for cell therapy safety.

WHO

The conference will bring together leading experts from industry, academia, health services and therapeutic regulatory bodies around the world, including the US Food and Drug Administration, European Medicines Agency, Japan Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency, and World Health Organization.

CIRM and IABS encourage individuals and organizations actively pursuing the development of stem cell therapies to attend.

WHY

If you’re interested, but not quite sold on this conference, take the word of these experts:
Robert Deans, Chief Technology Officer at BlueRock Therapeutics:

“I believe standardization will be an increasingly crucial element in securing commercial success for regenerative cell therapies.  This applies to all facets of development, from cell characterization and patent protection through safety testing of final product.  Most important is the adherence of players in this sector to harmonized standards and creation of a scientifically credible market to the capital community.”

Professor Martin Pera of the Jackson Laboratory, who directs the International  Stem Cell Initiative Genetics and Epigenetics Study Group:

“Participants at this meeting will survey and discuss the state of the art in the development of definitive assays for assessing the safety of pluripotent stem cell based therapies, a critical issue for the future of the field.  Anyone active in cell therapy should attend this meeting to contribute to a dialogue that will impact on research directions and ultimately help to define best practice in this sector.”

When and Where

The conference will be held in Los Angeles Airport Marriott on June 5-6^th, 2018. Registration is now open on the IABS website and you can take advantage of discounted early bird registration before April 24^th.