Questions and Answers
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Key Points
- Stem Cells for Safer Medicines Ltd is a unique public-private collaboration with membership from UK Government and pharmaceutical companies.
- The initiative was developed as a direct follow up to the report of the UK Stem Cell Initiative, chaired by Sir John Pattison and published in November 2005.
- Initial research will enable the use of stem cells in early drug discovery by focusing on key scientific challenges and developing open standards and protocols.
- The long-term objective of the collaboration is to develop a bank of differentiated human cell lines to be used in early drug discovery to provide early identification and elimination of potential toxicity issues before clinical testing.
- Research will be funded in academe and participation by biotechnology SMEs encouraged.
- The initiative has real potential to assist with drug development, by identifying potential medicines that may have unexpected safety issues in clinical studies.
- The advantage for participating companies is that they will help define standards in line with their specific needs and be in the lead in utilising the such technologies in the development of new medicines.
