Spray Treatment to Debut for Burns

A Korean venture start-up looks to market a new drug created via stem cell technologies to heal damaged skin, such as from burns, in a couple of months.

MCTT on Friday said the bio venture had gained Korea Food and Drug Administration’s approval to sell the stem cell drug, Autocel.

The company plans to carry out in-house tests with Autocel, which can be sprayed on damaged skin, over the next two to three months before putting it on the market.

Patch-type drugs were introduced to repair damaged skin by culturing cells, but Autocel is the first spray-like drug geared to the same job.

The breakthrough technologies were originally developed last year by the Korea Institute of Radiological and Medical Science group, led by senior researcher Son Young-sook.

Son and her crew extracted skin stem cells from a burn patient’s epidermis and increased the number by 200 times in a test tube in two weeks.

They then sprayed them back on to the patient with a satisfactory result, and all without having to resort to traditional skin grafting surgery.

MCTT gained the right to develop and sell commercial drugs with the technologies.

The principles of the new treatment are basically identical to those in adult stem cell research - to derive adult stem cells, increase their number and transplant them to the body without causing a negative immune response.