Market Challenges And Opportunities

Global Stem Cells Market – Impact of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic

Since the COVID-19 virus outbreak in December 2019, the disease has spread to over 100 countries across the globe, and the World Health Organization declared it a public health emergency on January 30, 2020.

COVID-19 affected the economy in three main ways: by directly affecting the production and demand of drugs, by creating disruptions in distribution channels, and through its financial impact on firms and financial markets. Due to nationwide lockdowns, several countries, such as China, India, Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Egypt, and others, are facing problems with the transportation of drugs from one place to another.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic had a positive impact on the global stem cells market. This was due to the surge in research and development activities that occurred during the pandemic. For instance, in August 2022, StemCyte India Therapeutics Pvt. Ltd., a biopharmaceutical company, obtained approval from the U.S. FDA for their Phase II clinical trial for Post-COVID Syndrome using umbilical cord blood stem cell therapy.

Discrepancies in clinical trial data: The inability of investigational new drugs (IND) to produce effective results can restrain growth of the global stem cells market. For instance, on June 19, 2023, BioSenic SA, an innovative company with the objective of addressing important unmet medical needs in the areas of immunity, auto-immune diseases, and organ repair, halted a phase IIb trial for its allogeneic stem cell therapy, Allob, after it failed to accelerate healing when given to patients two days after they sustained tibial fractures. The company, thus, shifted its focus to its late-stage arsenic trioxide candidate for chronic graft-vs.-host disease (GVHD). This restraint can be overcome by investing in data quality from the beginning of the trial and hiring biostatisticians to analyze the data.
Lack of approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA): With the exception of a few approved treatments, the use of stem cells to treat illnesses has not reached the point where it is ready for widespread use in clinics. There are very few stem cell therapies that have been proven to be efficacious. There have been reports of adverse events as a result of stem cell therapies. Many businesses in the U.S. are marketing stem cell therapies that have not gone through the rigorous clinical trial process or been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). This can be overcome by reporting adverse drug reactions (ADRs) resulting from treatments at unregulated stem cell clinics around the world.

Global Stem Cells Market - Key Players

Major players operating in the global stem cells market include Advanced Cell Technology, Inc., Angel Biotechnology Holdings PLC, Biotricity, Lineage Cell Therapeutics, Inc., BrainStorm Cell Limited., CIRM, Celgene Corporation (A subsidiary of Bristol-Myers Squibb Company), Takara Bio Inc., Cellular Engineering Technologies., Cytori Therapeutics Inc., and STEMCELL Technologies.