Academic stem cell research pioneer entree into the world of markets and profit is always a trend worth watching. Today we're taking a quick look at Fate Therapeutics.
Among our Sector Companies, all of which are publicly traded, typically someone has suggested a possibility that business people see as a probability. From there the emphasis is on obtaining approvals from public agencies, gaining market position, branding, and developing scalability, all toward the end of profitable sales.
Examples range from companies that raise and spend public investor money primarily on research and development (such as Advanced Cell Technologies, Geron, Osiris and others) to those companies formed to market an already existing product or discovery (Neostem comes to mind here; the company has signed numerous partnership and license agreements, particularly in foreign markets, but has yet to spend money on research).
As research into regenerative medicine and stem cells progresses, capital will continue to seek knowledge, or vice versa, and new companies will enter the potential market place. Academic researchers will be involved through actual participation in the formation and ongoing policy of the new entity or in an advisory capacity that most probably includes an ownership interest.
We've recently posted about Cellular Dynamics International and iPerian, both of which are privately held stem cell companies associated with academic stem cell research heavyweights. Both of these companies are concentrating in the Induced pluripotency arena.
Fate Therapeutics was founded in 2007 to, "use conventional drug discovery and iPS cell technology to identify small molecules and biologics to develop therapeutics for diseases and conditions that currently have limited to no treatment options."
A broader mission statement was included in a recent MIT Technology Review article: "Fate Therapeutics, a startup based in La Jolla, CA, aims to harness the body's ability to heal itself by developing drugs that stimulate resident stem cells. Rather than developing cell transplants to replace diseased or damaged tissue, which is the focus of a great deal of stem-cell research, Fate is searching for molecules that can control the behavior of adult stem cells in different parts of the body."
The Scientific Founders of Fate Therapeutics are:
- Dr. Philip Beachy, Ernest and Amelia Gallo Professor of Developmental Biology at Stanford University School of Medicine, and Associate at the Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine.
- Dr. Sheng Ding, Associate Professor of the Chemistry and Cell Biology Departments at the Scripps Research Institute.
- Dr. Rudolph Jaenisch: founding member of the Whitehead Institute and a pioneer of developmental biology.
- Dr. John Mendlein, Executive Chairman of Fate Therapeutics.
- Dr. Randall Moon, Investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and a Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
- Dr. David Scadden, Gerald and Darlene Jordan Professor of Medicine at Harvard University and a practicing hematologist/oncologist. Currently is co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.
- Dr. Leonard I. Zon, Grousbeck Professor of Pediatric Medicine at Harvard Medical School, an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Director of the Stem Cell Program at Children's Hospital Boston.
"Fate's strategy is to try and take advantage of what we're learning about stem-cell biology to develop methods of using drugs to turn on or turn off stem cells," said David Scadden, one of the company's founders.
Fate has raised $25 million in capital and is backed by three venture-capital groups. The company has been building its intellectual-property portfolio by licensing technology from different universities, focusing in part on iPS cell technology, as well as patenting the stem-cell discoveries of its founders and in-house scientists.
Fate's first clinical trial focuses on a molecule known as FT1050. The molecule appears to stimulate proliferation of hematopoietic stem cells--which give rise to blood and immune cells--and helps guide them to the bone marrow. If successful, the drug could become a companion treatment to bone-marrow transplants and cord-blood transfusions used to treat cancer and blood diseases.
Treatment for leukemia or lymphoma kills off most of a patient's hematopoietic stem cells, and the best way to repopulate them is through bone marrow transplanted from a matched donor. When a bone-marrow donor match is unavailable, oncologists turn to umbilical-cord blood, which is rich in stem cells and requires only a partial tissue-type match. However, cord blood is also incredibly expensive, costing upwards of $30,000 or more per unit, and blood from a single cord is often insufficient to treat an adult.
"It becomes very difficult to find a unit large enough for a full-grown adult," said Dennis Confer, chief medical officer of the National Marrow Donor Program. Physicians can sometimes use blood from two cords, but this is even more expensive and requires that both cord samples match the donor. "If someone could come up with an expansion strategy that was more cost-effective, that could gain wide acceptance," he added.
Comments