Tissue therapy
Tissue therapy is a treatment where cells or tissue are used to repair, replace, or rebuild damaged tissue in the body.
Tissue-engineered medicinal product: when tissue repairs the body
Tissue-engineered medicinal product is treatment in which cells or tissue are used to repair, replace, or rebuild damaged tissue in the body.
The body can repair a great deal on its own. A wound can close. A bone fracture can heal. But some injuries are too large or too complex for the body to handle alone. This is where tissue-engineered medicinal product can come into play. You could say that tissue-engineered medicinal product is a kind of advanced biological reconstruction. The goal is to help the body form or restore tissue that has been damaged by disease, injury, or treatment.
Tissue-engineered medicinal product often lies at the intersection of medicinal products, biological tissue, and medical devices.
The crucial factor is what the cells are meant to do.
If the cells are primarily intended to affect the body biochemically, this is cell therapy. If they are mainly intended to help rebuild a tissue or get it functioning again, this is tissue-engineered medicinal product.
How tissue-engineered medicinal products work
Some treatments begin by taking a small sample of the patient’s own cells or tissue. The cells are grown and checked in the laboratory until they can be used as part of the treatment. They are then returned to the patient where the tissue needs to be repaired.
In some treatments, the cells are placed on a biological or artificial support, a so-called matrix or scaffold. The matrix can help the cells grow in the right shape and direction. When a scaffold or a medical device is an integral part of the product, it is referred to as a combined ATMP.
2 examples of tissue-engineered medicinal product
Tissue-engineered medicinal product is used to repair or rebuild parts of the body that have been damaged. This could, for example, be skin for burns, cartilage for worn knees, or corneas for eye diseases.
New cells from the patient's own eye can repair the cornea
If the cornea is damaged, it is sometimes possible to grow new cells. The treatment requires that there is still a small intact area left in the eye from which healthy cells can be harvested. The cells are then grown in the laboratory and returned to the damaged area of the cornea.
The goal is to restore the surface of the eye and thereby improve vision.One example is Holoclar, which consists of cultured limbal stem cells from the patient’s own eye. The Danish Medicines Council has recommended Holoclar for a selected patient group.
Source: Limbal stem cells (Holoclar) - Limbal stem cell deficiencyRepair of damaged cartilage in the knee
If the cartilage in a knee is damaged, for example after an injury, one can, for example, remove healthy cartilage-forming cells, grow them, and put them back into the damaged area, where they can form new cartilage tissue. This is, for example, Spherox, which is approved by the EMA, but the marketing authorisation holder has not applied for launch in Denmark and has therefore not been assessed by the Danish Medicines Council.
Explore the other ATMPs
Learn more about how cell therapy and gene therapy differ from tissue-engineered medicinal products.
What is ATMP?
ATMP stands for Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products and is a new type of advanced medicine that uses the body’s own building blocks—genes, cells, and tissue—to repair or change what isn’t working.
It opens up new possibilities for treating serious diseases—also diseases where, before, there were few or no treatment options. That’s why ATMP is changing the way we treat some diseases.
