We started realizing that we could partner with hospitals and become the bolt-on solution for cellular and gene therapies . For example , when company A develops a cellular or gene-based treatment , the patients ’ cells need to be collected by a company that handles cells on a regular basis . If a hospital wants to offer these cutting-edge treatments , they could send their patients to a StemExpress facility in which the patient would have cells collected for their upcoming cell-therapy treatment . These therapies currently include cancer ( CAR-T ), tissue engineering , as well as tendon and ortho repairs . Once the cells have been collected and extracted , they can be routed directly back to the health care provider or sent to the manufacturer for further manipulation . StemExpress fills the gap needed to accelerate these offerings on a local basis , but ( also ) on a global scale .
This has been a big initiative we are really focused on . We ’ ve been talking to a lot of the big regional hospitals about executing this to bring this forward . But , again , it ties back to that core mission : How can we speed up the process ? When we see a slowdown in the pipeline that ’ s affecting the execution of good quality care to patients , that ’ s where we dig in . This next phase for us is really that partnership with health care ( systems ) to deliver better patient treatment .
In the November 2020 election , California voters passed Proposition 14 , which approved $ 5.5 billion for stem cell and other medical research and keeps the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine open . What ’ s your perspective on Prop . 14 , which builds upon Proposition 71 , passed in 2004 , to support stem cell research in the state ? It has pros and cons . … In general , the initial language of the proposition and the funding associated with it was really clear . It talked about job creation in California . It talked about cutting-edge therapies and treatments for patients in California . And it talked about the money and royalties staying within
California . So if entities developed something , they would use California companies , ideally , to ultimately produce products for Californians . I think there has not been enough good oversight and guidelines when it comes to how Californians believed these funds would be spent .
There ’ s been money that ’ s been spent outside … California . There ’ s been money spent on projects that are not essentially going to make it to a commercial level of production for patients . And then there ’ s the question of the rights of the development of the product or the treatment and the ownership of those rights . … If Californians pay to fund work that produces a treatment , Californians should own the rights as well . … If entity A owns those rights and then charges Californians a fortune for what they ’ ve created , we sort of missed the whole picture . There needs to be better accountability .
In 2015 , you were involved in congressional hearings around your work with Planned Parenthood . Can you tell me what lessons you learned from that experience ? The lesson I learned ( is ) when there are political hot buttons that come up in our country , people dig in oftentimes and not with all of the facts . Sometimes ( they ) can purposely mislead the facts to fulfill their own agenda , which is what happened with us in 2015 . The work we did with Planned Parenthood has always been predominantly to support women having healthy pregnancies . For example , the work we did with them in Fresno , in an area where Planned Parenthood is one of the only ( places ) to treat uninsured patients that are pregnant with prenatal drugs and prenatal care to help them have healthier pregnancies . One of the things we did was to collect a lot of maternal blood down in Fresno to support lifesaving treatments through blood therapy and with companies to develop better testing for women when they ’ re pregnant . So much of that got overshadowed by a handful of bad actors that wanted to focus on creating their own messaging about those relationships .
There will always be people — no matter whether or not you ’ re curing cancer or saving lives or creating new technology — that will disagree with the methods used to ultimately produce a good outcome . I ’ ll give you a current-day example . … The New York Times did a great article recently about ( an antibody ) treatment that Donald Trump had , by Regeneron , when he had COVID . That treatment had fetal cells in it . … Trump talked about how it was a treatment that he thinks saved his life during COVID . There ’ s always components of things where people push back , and people will disapprove of the methods or research being done , but I think at the end of the day , if all the researchers do their job well and stay within the ethical guidelines and follow the ( National Institutes of Health ) and all the ( regulations ), great things can be created that actually save lives .
What advice do you have for other women entrepreneurs ? In mentoring and coaching other women entrepreneurs , ( I advise them ) to not shy away from engagement groups that are very male-dominated . Sometimes we have spent so long as women feeling like we ’ re maybe the only woman in the room with male colleagues ( that ) some of us have been driven to women-only groups , which are fabulous as well . I participate there heavily too . But I think it ’ s also really crucial to not silo ourselves . … I participate in Vistage , the CEO group , and it is heavily male . … It ’ s important for women leaders to lean into that , to ultimately not shy away from those challenges or those events , and to learn from our male colleagues and to educate them if we see … women being sidelined or ( men ) not asking their participation in conversation ; to bring that up and bring that forward in a way that ’ s not threatening but engaging .
Edited for length and clarity .
Sena Christian is managing editor of Comstock ’ s . Online at www . senachristian . com and on Twitter @ SenaCChristian .
March 2021 | comstocksmag . com 33