Regenerative medicine, although a young industry, has made measurable progress in recent years. There are currently over 570 ongoing clinical trials involving cell therapies or tissue engineering. Most of these trials involve adult stem cells products for cancer applications such as stem cell transplants. Besides, there are also over 75 ongoing trials involving adult stem cells addressing other therapeutic applications such as heart disease, diabetes, severe burns, bone regrowth, and vision impairment. The indications that regenerative medicine tackles are often poorly addressed by current biotech or drug therapies. Adult stem cells have been studied for over 30 years and are well characterized, which has led to the FDA approval of several cell therapies: repopulation of bone marrow following chemotherapy, treatment of select immune disorders. In addition, several companies are now working on products derived from embryonic stem cells and recent progress show that some should reach the clinic in the near term. Proteus also sees near-term revenue opportunities for companies making tools for the industry, or using stem cells for drug discovery and development.

The forces driving this growth of the regenerative medicine market are both compelling and well known: an aging population which demands increasingly more sophisticated treatments has driven US healthcare spendings to $1.8T per annum, or 15.4% of GDP. Those numbers are expected to increase at a CAGR of 7.1%. In this context it is not surprising that the current market for regenerative medicine is $3.6B, and is projected to reach $11.5B in 2010 with a projected CAGR of 27.5%. The DHHS predicts that the market for regenerative medicine therapies will reach $300B by 2020.