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<p><font face="Calibri">Remember watching </font><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_(2005_film)"><font face="Calibri" color="#800080">“The Island”</font></a><font face="Calibri"> and thinking how cool it would be to know that if you had major organ failure, you’d be able to have one made for you and impla...
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<p><font face="Calibri">Remember watching </font><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_(2005_film)"><font face="Calibri" color="#800080">“The Island”</font></a><font face="Calibri"> and thinking how cool it would be to know that if you had major organ failure, you’d be able to have one made for you and implanted for your faulty one? Now, remember struggling with the ethical issue of having raising a clone of yourself, via a company, just so that an organ would be available for you should you need it? Well, Tengion seems to have made a significant breakthrough in tissue engineering that doesn’t require a clone of yourself. Their technology is amazing. They take some of your cells, and are able to build an organ (yes, just an organ – not a clone from which they take the organ) that can be used for a transplant. In addition, you may have heard of the risks associated with most transplants – the primary one being organ rejection. With Tengion’s technology, all the tissue they create is identical to the patient’s tissue. This means that there is no risk of organ rejection, making transplants safer and cheaper (i.e., no need to immunosuppressants or further hospitalization from rejection complications). Imagine the value this technology adds not just to the lives of patients, but also to the cost we currently bear from transplants (it’s a lot).</font></p>
<span style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri">So far, Tengion has focused on three body parts: (1) bladders, (2) blood vessels, and (3) kidneys. The bladder product is the furthest along, nearly in phase III trials. So far, the data they have collected is compelling, with patients having no rejection risk (it is their own tissue after all), and having similar, if not better, results than current treatments (most involving the creation of a new “bladder” from the small or large intestines). Granted, the bladder is probably the simplest organ in the human body (it is just a sack that holds urine), and replicating these results with blood vessels, and kidneys will be difficult. However, given the medical need and the potential to revolutionize healthcare for many makes me want to root for Tengion, and keep my fingers crossed that they will be able to bring their success with bladders to the other organs they are trying to recreate. In particular, if Tengion can replicate a kidney – this means that dialysis will become a thing of the past…Amazing…Not only will insurance companies reimburse for this advance in technology, everybody (patients and providers) will want to be involved. Tengion would be set…</font></span>
<span style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt"><font face="Calibri">As you can tell, I’m all starry-eyed over Tengion’s technology. I am also very optimistic that they will do well given the passion and drive their senior management has (I had the opportunity to meet the CEO and VP of Marketing and Commercial Planning). However, the road to commercializing this technology is fraught with risks. This includes the potential for negative clinical trial results, and strange, unexpected occurrences that biology tends to throw at us. Despite these risks, I will be keeping my fingers crossed that Tengion does well, as it will completely revolutionize healthcare for many. Given the value this technology would add to society, not only do I hope they succeed, I almost think they must succeed to open the door to others who want to pursue regenerative medicine.</font></span>
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