Stem Cells for Safer Medicines
The closing date for expressions of interest to join Stem Cells for Safer Medicines (SC4SM) is fast approaching - on 24 October 2007 [1].
SC4SM is an independent nonprofit organization formed through a consortium of public agencies and private companies which include three international drug companies GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca and Roche and the government agencies Department of Health, the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS), the Scottish Government, the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
The main objective of SC4SM is “to enable the creation a bank of stem cells, open protocols and standardized systems in stem cell technology that will enable consistent differentiation of stem cells into stable homogenous populations of particular cell types, with physiologically relevant phenotypes suitable for toxicology testing in high throughput platforms.”
This is the first open involvement of pharmaceutical companies in human embryonic stem cell research and certainly the first consortium of its kind. [2]
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