Recent Patents on Regenerative Medicine - Volume 5, Issue 1, 2015

Cosmetic and reconstructive surgery relies extensively on the complex relationship between skin, soft tissue and the underlying bone skeleton. Soft tissue loss and acquired soft tissue deficits are some of the daily challenges faced by the plastic surgeon. Fat grafting has become one of the standard lines of care that has various applications in plastic surgery treatments. The ability of adipose stem cells to rejuvenate tissues is promising for plastic surgery. Bone disorders, including infection and poor healing, pose vexing problems to the reconstructive surgeon. Vascular surgery is a technique necessary for the reconstruction of the most challenging surgical defects, and has great potential for improvement through technology. Recent patents discussed in this article demonstrate promise to dramatically improve a number of specific patient conditions. Nanoscale refinements of current techniques may offer more efficient and improved surgical and non-surgical approaches for reconstruction. Such refinements will significantly expand our capabilities for innovative reconstructive interventions, with high efficiency, specificity and minimal invasiveness.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by progressive motor neuron degeneration in the brain and spinal cord. Reliable treatment options for this disease are limited due to complexity and multifactorial causes of motor neuron damage. Cell therapy might be a promising treatment for ALS. Numerous preclinical studies have validated the feasibility of cell therapy using various cell types and routes of administration. These cell therapy approaches largely take one of two distinct therapeutic strategies: neuroprotection or motor neuron replacement. Despite some promising results, the success of cell therapy in ALS might rely on a combinative strategy that exploits the benefits of both neuronal cell protection and replacement. Although, ongoing clinical trials provide promising results in cell therapy for treatment of ALS patients, some challenges still facing potential cell therapy development. In this review, current cell products and patent technology related to cell therapeutic strategies are discussed. A detailed discussion of this topic might offer vital insight into the future and viability of cell therapy for ALS.

Intellectual property rights are increasingly seen as critical to the survival and growth of new and emerging technologies, such as stem cell research. Breakthrough technologies are swiftly patented (i.e. WARF and Yamanaka) but not without ample obstacles. Too early in the research development and patents issued often overreach broadly and wreak havoc on any future scientific developments. In fact, the establishment and the use of human pluripotent stem cells have proven complicated and problematic. Old broad patents claiming methods that cannot not replicate are, preventing development of newer, simpler and more effective technologies. On the other hand, the European patenting situation is deemed unfair against European scientists who cannot patent their human embryonic stem cell developed methods or cells, whereas others in different countries can perfectly do so. Nonetheless, the human pluripotent stem cell area is rapidly expanding and this is increasingly reflected in the global patent landscape. This review briefly discusses the present pluripotent stem cell environment using examples of worldwide patents with an emphasis on the United States, European Union and Sweden. It continues with the latest legal challenges in the United States and Europe and follows up with remarks on the current and future developments in this area.

Human pluripotent stem cells in their characteristics of immortal self-renewal and pluripotency have gained high expectations during last fifteen years regarding their ability to cure near any human disease. Regenerative Medicine was the new term for the novel cell-based treatments, which had the possibility of curing genetic diseases as well by previous correction of endogenous mutations in patient-specific induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. The possibility of developing combined genetic/ stem cell therapies for at least inherited monogenic diseases, meanwhile surpassing ethical rightness to destroy otherwise non-usable human embryos, still raised even more interest in the field of translational pluripotency. Aternative sources of stem cells from adult human tissues, gave rise to the research competition between the pluripotent stem and adult stem cells. The latter surpassed ethical debates but imposed slowness on the development of the field to translational medicine: these cells were multipotent in their vast majority, not immortal, and obtaining relevant amounts for research was more difficult compared to pluripotent stem cells. Despite their advantages in terms of availability, induced pluripotent cells have been mainly obtained by means of genetic modification, which impairs safeness of the downstream therapeutic product. The present review outlines the most recent inventions related to the preparation of safe clinical-grade hIPS cells. Its main objective is to contribute a concise compilation of the advances in the reprogramming of adult cells to pluripotency, the choice of original tissues and cell types, the methods of reprogramming to pluripotency, and above all the alternatives for elimination of genetic material from the reprogramming protocol. Registered patents and related bibliography reported mostly from the past two years have been reviewed, although basic literature has been included where needed to explain recent developments.

In recent years, cell-based therapies have gained great enthusiasm as a new therapeutic approach for addressing many disorders. Many researchers have shown the roles of stem cells in replacing damaged tissues and in providing extracellular factors that can promote endogenous cellular replenishment. Also, stem cells are rich source of soluble factors and microvesicles, which are released from their surfaces and thereby exerting paracrine effect. Although pluripotent stem cells are considered the cornerstone in regenerative medicine, various types of more differentiated adult stem and progenitor cells are exploited. In this review, we provide an overview about the recent advances in the field of regenerative medicine and stem cell therapies for diabetes, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, with special interest in the recent patents. Patents from WIPO, USPTO, Patent scope and European patent databases have been discussed. In conclusion, the increasing number of patents and the extensive scientific research suggests that stem cell therapies hold a promising future for the management of incurable diseases.

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) are believed to cause cancer recurrence because they resist conventional therapies and restart the growth of tumor cells. CSCs has a specific biological behavior, mainly due to a deregulation of the self-renewal capacity. These cells differ in division and the cell cycle, replication capacity in DNA repair, and deregulation of signaling pathways. Collectively, these results give CSC a malignant phenotype. This review focuses on CSCs oncology patents in the years 2011-2015. Because many inventions have recently been registered in relation to stem cells, our attention focuses on cancer-utility CSCs patents. The patents selected have been analyzed based on their therapeutic usefulness in the area of cancer, and we have detected a clear increase in interest, so that the data of patent applications filed in 2014 is highly significant. Compared with the total for 2013, patents have multiplied by 8.01. On the other hand, 59.57% of all selected patents were useful in oncology in general, opening new therapeutic perspectives for identifying CSCs. We also analyzed the interests of different countries in advancing knowledge in the area of the CSCs as a therapeutic tool for tumors. Some 38% of these patents are registered in the EU, while other countries showed fewer patents in this field of pathologies.