Singapore: The Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM), which is a US-based non-profit organization that promotes legislative, regulatory, reimbursement, and financing initiatives necessary to facilitate access to life-giving advances in regenerative medicine, has formed a Tissue Engineering and Biomaterials Committee (TEBC) to assemble companies, academic institutions, and organizations within the ARM that develop and commercialize tissue engineered and biomaterial-based technologies.

The TEBC will develop a better understanding of the key barriers to translation and scale up of regenerative medicine technologies including challenges in efficient product design, pilot and scale up manufacturing, regulation, and reimbursement. Furthermore, TEBC will also focus on building public awareness of this new field of medicine and an appreciation for its potential to transform healthcare. Members of the TEBC will include private and public sector representatives involved in the field of tissue engineering. The TEBC group will include experts from interdisciplinary technologies that utilize cells, biomaterials, growth factors, small molecules, scaffolds, and other therapeutic agents to affect tissue growth or regeneration.

Tissue engineered technologies are being developed as clinical therapeutics to improve biological functions primarily through the repair, restoration, or total replacement of tissue or organ and are also being developed and commercialized as 3D tissue models and micro-organs to provide better research tools for drug discovery and clinical diagnostics.

The committee will be led by Dr Sarah Haecker, a member of ARM's senior staff. Sarah has more than 20 years of experience in the industry and for the last seven years has specialized in working with companies in the tissue engineering sector. "We will work to identify and capitalize on opportunities that accelerate product development and commercialization of these innovative regenerative medicine technologies," said Dr Haecker. "The primary purpose of the TEBC is to determine the unique requirements which will, ultimately, advance and broaden the use of clinical tissue engineered paradigms world-wide."

Members of the Tissue Engineering and Biomaterials Committee already include members like Cellular Dynamics, Circle Biologics, Harvard Bioscience, Histogenics, InVivo Therapeutics, ISTO, JDRF, Johns Hopkins University, McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, MiMedx, Nanofiber Solutions, Northwestern University Comprehensive Transplant Center, Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, New York Stem Cell Institute, Organogenesis, Organovo, Pfizer, Sanofi Genzyme, Shire Regenerative Medicine, Tengion, and Texas Heart Institute among others.