Are you an executive at a stem cell company that offers induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) research products? Or, are you an investor in a company of this type? If so, have you wondered how much market competition exists for your products or services? Have you been curious as to the rate at which this competition is increasing?  By focusing on these key points of understanding, you’ll be able to assess the technical attributes that matter, including what opportunities exist for expanding your product line and your customer reach.

iPSC research products have existed since 2006, the year in which Shinya Yamanaka’s team at Kyoto University first produced iPSCs from mouse cells.  The discovery was a vital advancement in stem cell research, as it allows researchers to obtain pluripotent stem cells without the difficult legal, technical and ethical controversies that have long surrounded deriving cells from embryos.  Yamanaka and his team reprogrammed adult mouse fibroblasts into iPSCs by introducing four reprogramming factors: Oct4, Sox2, c-Myc and Klf4.  Subsequent work by James Thomson and colleagues replicated Yamanaka’s success with human cells and revealed additional factors, Nanog and Lin28, which facilitate the reprogramming process.
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