With eyes on the future of the coming wave of approved, personalized cell therapies for a range of diseases, life sciences company GoodCell announced it is launching its Personal Biobanking Service that allows individuals to proactively collect and store their stems cells that can be used in the future for the creation of personalized therapies.
According to GoodCell the company will also make other services, beyond biobanking available to their clients.
“Our belief is that Personal Biobanking will impact the way preventative medicine is defined in the future,” said Chris Garcia, GoodCell CEO. “Being able to store and use stem cells for diagnostic purposes is only the beginning. GoodCell will inform members about their inherited and acquired genetics as well as track genetic changes over time. This knowledge, combined with access to their own biomaterial for personalized cellular therapies, can prevent or change the trajectory of certain diseases that impact our members.”
According to research conducted by GoodCell, there are currently thousands of cell therapies in development for a broad range of diseases ranging from neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinsons diseases to major chronic health conditions such as diabetes and heart disease, as well as multiple indications in the oncology landscape. These health conditions could impact as many as one-in-two people in the coming years. This, combined with estimates that the FDA anticipates providing marketing approvals for 10 or more cell therapies annually beginning in 2025, makes the case for people to proactively store their blood stem cells, collected via a routine blood draw.
“Blood stem cells have been used for stem cell transplants to save lives for decades now,” said GoodCell co-founder David Scadden, M.D., in a press release. “The stem cell represents a moment in which a new technology becomes available where you can envision it making a fundamental difference for the lives of people who have otherwise intractable diseases.”
Consumers interested in the service can request a kit from GoodCell, which will be delivered in the mail. To make sample collection convenient, GoodCell has partnered with Quest Diagnostics to allow consumers to schedule their blood draws at any one of the more than 3,000 Quest labs across the country. Quest will forward the samples to GoodCell which will extract the needed components from the blood and then store them in their biobanking facility, both of which are CLIA/CAP certified.
Current cell therapies are created either with cells from a patient receiving the therapy, but many therapies rely on donor samples. Being able to use a patient’s own stem cells for therapy production eliminates the need to test the donor samples for matching, and reduces the need for prescribing immunosuppressants to protect against rejection of the therapy.
“As cellular therapies advance, GoodCell empowers individuals with the opportunity to preserve their personal biology and harness the power of their blood,” said Salvatore Viscomi, M.D., CMO of GoodCell. “GoodCell is pioneering the future of personalized medicine for its members.”
GoodCell extracts and stores peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs), which can be used to generate induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). IPSCs can be used to make any cell type in the human body that may be needed for therapeutic purposes. A number of IPSC-based cell therapy clinical trials involving have shown early potential. Current therapies in pharma company pipelines using IPSC cell therapies include those for Alzheimer’s disease, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, cornea injury, critical limb ischemia, diabetes, inflammation, lung cancer, macular degeneration, male infertility, osteoarthritis, pancreatic cancer, Parkinson’s, severe bone fractures, and stroke.
