News Capsule - National

LifeCell International ties up with Harvest Technologies

Our News Bureau - Mumbai

LifeCell International India's largest stem cell banking service provider, which has also pioneered in stem cell research and technology, has recently announced its association with Harvest Technologies to bring-in a next generation technology Bone Marrow Aspirate Concentrate (BMAC) system in India.

Harvest Technologies has decades of cumulative experience designing, manufacturing and marketing devices for blood component separation, platelet sequestration, and bone marrow derived stem cell harvesting.

Speaking on the occasion, Mayur Abhaya, Executive Director, LifeCell International commented, "We are excited to partner with Harvest Technologies to bring-in international standards to India. LifeCell International is today India's only comprehensive stem cells solutions provider as we offer a complete spectrum of services and with this association we intend to accelerate the availability of advanced stem cell therapy in India."

BMAC is a US FDA and CE approved biological technology that accelerates the body's natural healing capacity, thereby improving surgical outcomes. The BMAC system helps in safe and rapid preparation of cell concentrate from bone marrow.

The system is currently being used clinically in many developed countries like US and Europe for various medical disciplines. These applications range from fractures, non-unions, osteonecrosis, cartilage repair applications and critical limb ischemia (CLI). The system will soon be applied for cardio vascular regeneration.

LifeCell has implemented this technology for an ongoing Indian Chronic Limb Ischemia (CLI) study which is being led by Dr K S Vijayragavan at Department of Vascular Surgery, SRMC. As per the data available on the interim study conducted on 30 patients after a 12 week follow up major amputations were seen only in four patients and six of them went for minor amputation.

According to Scott Shea, Managing Director, Harvests Technologies GmbH, "The Autologous regenerative cells from bone marrow offer profound potential for therapies. Harvest has conducted about 30,000 clinical procedures for various applications, the highest number of procedures in the world, using the Bone Marrow Aspirate Concentrate (BMAC) system. Our novel technology now makes it possible to harvest the regenerative cells safely and rapidly in order to develop new therapies for heretofore incurable diseases."

On the partnership he said, "LifeCell has a well established network with hospitals and clinical institutions across India and we would leverage their strength to rapidly deploy our service across the country and provide hope in addressing unmet medical challenges by offering cellular therapeutic options."

Commenting on the interim report, Mayur added, "Through our clinical research, we have identified that the transplantation of autologous BMAC into critically ischemic leg can increase blood flow and support in healing the wounds quickly. It also helps in reducing pain and avoiding leg amputation of otherwise incurable patients. This is also validated by the outcome of the CLI study which showed that 86.6 percent of patients could avoid amputation."