Practical Use of iPS Cells

A medical startup based on the University of Osaka announced late September that it successfully transplanted heart patch derived from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells into a patient with serious heart disease. It made the first example of practical use of iPS cells in the world. Having twenty years passed since development of iPS cells, Japan entered an era of providing medical services using this new regenerative technology. 

The iPS cells are generated by making adult cells go back to an immature status which can transform into various organ of human body. Professor of Kyoto University, Shinya Yamanaka, announced generation of iPS cells in 2006 and he received Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2012. Since the generation of iPS cells, experts have been developing the way for practical use.

 

A startup dealing with iPS cells, Cuorips, has been developing cardiomyocyte sheet to cure heart disease. Osaka Keisatsu Hospital, which president Yoshiki Sawa is one of the board members of Cuorips, transplanted a heart patch called RiHeart, derived from iPS cells into a woman at the age of 50s for therapy of myocardial infarction. The sheet was cultivated from cells of another person and attached on heart of the patient. The sheet is expected to recover function of heart by producing new blood vessel.

 

The surgery ended in 50 minutes and the patient was in a stable condition after the surgery. It is expected that she would be discharging from the hospital within one or two weeks. In eight examples of clinical trials for RiHeart, pant of all the patient was improved after a year from transplanting surgery. Four out of those eight showed improvement of motor function. When the government of Japan approved production and sales of RiHeart, it set a condition that its effectiveness needed to be proved by 2033. Cuorips is going to have 75 surgeries for coming seven years.

 

The biggest concern is affordability. RiHeart can be transplanted into a patient with no alternative treatment. The price of RiHeart for a person is 53.2 million yen, which is not affordable for ordinary patients. Although a patient can take advantage of a system of support for expensive medical treatment in medical insurance, the surgery would cost several hundred thousand yen. Reducing the cost of transplanting RiHeart will be the key to popularize it.

 

Cuorips will need to prove usefulness of RiHeart, which meets the cost. Heart disease is the second biggest killer for the Japanese and patients of heart failure are increasing year by year. The development of iPS technology is a race against prevalence of heart diseases. The iPS cells can also be applied to treatment of Parkinson disease. It is likely that study on iPS cells will be accelerated in Japan for coming years.

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