Except for GE’s motto, “We bring good things to life,” it is difficult to figure out why an electric company is getting into stem-cell research.  OK, General Electric does have a health care division and that division will be working with Geron Corporation to come up with commercial products from stem-cells.  No we are not talking cloning.

GE Healthcare has signed an agreement to work with Geron, a stem-cell research company “to develop and commercialize cellular assay products derived from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) for use in drug discovery, development and toxicity screening.”

In other words, GE Healthcare will use Geron stem-cell research to develop a way of testing potential medications for toxicity to humans.  So rather than using animals or even people for costly and time consuming clinical trials (although those will still be required by the FDA), drug companies can find out early in their research if a drug carries potentially dangerous or deadly side effects for humans.

Stem-cells can be developed to mimic different organs in the body.  By using stem-cells to determine how a potential new drug will affect the heart or the liver, drug companies can determine which drugs to pursue and which to ditch much earlier in the development stages.  This allows drug researchers to focus time and resources on viable new drug therapies.  This will also cut down on the cost of developing new drugs and should result in lower costs for consumers.

GE Healthcare will use its Cell Factory to reproduce and manufacture stem-cells generated by Geron’s technology.  The companies anticipate generating specialized stem-cells for drug research in sufficient quantities to speed up the development of new drugs.

Other stem-cell companies are also pursuing development of stem-cells for commercial purposes.  It is unclear when any of these companies will have a viable commercial product.  It is also unclear how many different commercial products may be in the works.

GE and Geron are currently concentrating on developing stem-cells for drug research.  The companies may decide at a later date to pursue other avenues of stem-cell development for commercial use.

The first company able to bring viable stem-cell products to market will have a lead over other companies but that doesn’t mean that other companies won’t hit the market with different applications.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 4:24 am under Science and technology.

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