How birth tissue donations are fuelling the cell therapy revolution

As the burgeoning field of cell therapy evolves, so do the practices around obtaining the raw biological material needed to create these life-changing treatments. And one rather poetic source of cells ideal for many cell therapy use cases is blood and tissue that can be collected at the birth of a new baby. But, currently in practice, the vast majority of this tissue is simply thrown away.

Why is this? And how could the status quo be changed so that more life-saving tissue could be collected at the moment new life comes into the world? On today’s podcast, host Jonah Comstock chats with Priya Baraniak, chief business officer and head of process development and manufacturing at OrganaBio, and Lindsay Davies, chief scientific officer for NextCell Pharma, about how this tissue is currently collected and used and how this status quo may need to change.

In addition to talking about how and why these biological materials are so valuable, they also discuss some of the issues around birth tissue collection, from the logistical to the regulatory to the ethical. Furthermore, they discuss what the present looks like and what the future could look like as more cell therapies are approved and the demand for these materials ramps up.

You can listen to episode 105 of the pharmaphorum podcast in the player below, download the episode to your computer, or find it – and subscribe to the rest of the series in iTunes, Spotify, acast, Stitcher, and Podbean.