Yuta Lee on the future of stem cell therapies in enhancing healthspan and the challenges faced in regulatory approval for aging therapies.
The Founders Longevity Forum Singapore is just around the corner! This highly anticipated two-day event will bring together leading experts from science, healthcare, and investment to explore innovative breakthroughs and actionable strategies for promoting healthy aging. As global interest in longevity continues to soar, the forum will spotlight cutting-edge advancements in healthspan and vitality, foster impactful collaborations, and ignite critical discussions. With a spotlight on the Asia-Pacific region, the event will also highlight Singapore’s growing role as a pioneering hub for addressing the complexities of aging through innovation.
Yuta Lee, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Accelerated Biosciences is a highly anticipated speaker at the event. Under his leadership, Accelerated Biosciences has advanced the commercialization of human trophoblast stem cells (hTSCs), a pluripotent and immune-privileged stem cell platform with significant potential in regenerative medicine. Lee’s strategic direction has been key in securing a robust patent portfolio, with over 49 patents granted worldwide, providing freedom-to-operate for partners seeking clear pathways to commercialization.
Longevity.Technology: Lee’s commitment to accelerating cell and gene therapies aims to address critical challenges associated with an aging population and escalating healthcare costs, positioning him as a leading figure in the field of regenerative medicine. Stem cells are a growing topic in longevity in both the biotech and the clinical spheres and Lee will be discussing Stem Cell Therapies at the Forum along with Mattias Bernow (CEO, Cellcolabs) and Jordan Schlain (Founder & Chairman, Private Medical). Ahead of next month’s event, we sat down with Lee to discuss advancements in stem cell therapies, the scalability of human trophoblast stem cells, and the potential of exosomes in combating aging and chronic diseases.
Yuta Lee on…
A stem cell therapeutic future
The stem cell industry is projected to grow to over 56 billion by 2032, and the main factors driving this growth are historical – we’ve already had 200 years of chemical drugs and these drugs are palliative at best. So they block some symptoms but don’t really solve the original problem. And I think in the last 10 to 15 years of cell and gene therapy development, people are realizing that we can now use these therapies to actually cure or take care of the original issue. But it takes a couple of decades usually to evolve into the FDA or EMA system, and I believe that people see that now as a more economical way to achieve true healthspan and longevity – we will be shifting over.
In the next five or 10 years, we’re going to see a lot more of the science prove that these therapies have an effect not only for sick care, but also for prevention, and therefore really reach healthspan and longevity. It’s just a matter of time before that happens.
Targeting prevention is key
Much of the science is going to come through and really prove that these therapies will definitively cure much of the original source or cause of the disease – we just have to get it through the FDA or the EMA system. Unfortunately, the biggest problem right now is that aging is not considered an indication by the FDA or the EMA, and so we still have to go through an aging-related indication such as cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s in order to get through. If you look at longevity and healthspan from a holistic point of view, longevity really resides in the prevention of issues instead of taking care of problems after they’ve occurred, which is what the current system is designed on. And because the current system is also, financially designed around it, this means companies like mine will have a very difficult time trying to convince venture capitals to fund us to do something preventative. So you have to go after an indication, which we are. It only takes time for us to get through the system to prove that our therapies do more than take care of these sick care issues – and then we can start moving towards the front end of prevention in order to really achieve longevity and healthspan by deploying therapeutics before things happen.
The clinic and beyond…
We’ve been collaborating with the National Institute on Aging on using our human trophoblast stem cell exosomes towards cell senescence, which is one of the hallmarks of aging. We are applying the exosomes on senescent cells in vitro and in vivo, and we’re able to prove that our exosomes can down-regulate all of the senescence-associated secretory phenotypes associated with senescent cells and which are related to the chronic diseases that we have today. The long-term vision is that we will be able to take our exosome product and go after an indication such as resistant hypertension or psoriasis as a topical – these are recognized indications by the EFTA and the EMA, and as long as we get through to clinic with these, we believe that our exosomes should have systemic effect on aging and as well as on healthspan.
We are in the middle of our preclinical study, and once our preclinical study for resistant hypertension is completed, we will progress things with the FDA to move IND-enabling studies on animals and then we’ll go into the clinic with human beings. So this is all very, very exciting! We will be running our trials in the US because the US has the largest market still; we believe that once we get it through the FDA, all the other regulatory agencies should allow us to also apply our therapies around the world.
