Human embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells in cardiovascular drug discovery: patents and patented uses.

Human embryonic stem cells, hES, and the recently created human induced pluripotent stem cells, hiPS, have a multitude of uses in cardiovascular drug discovery with a significant patent coverage for most applications. The research involving hiPS and hES cells may be subdivided into two main areas: one utilizing undifferentiated cells, and the other using hES and hiPS for in vitro differentiation of mature cell types. Both areas are of use in basic discovery, high throughput screening, and toxicology research. A number of methods have been developed to differentiate stem cells to mature cardiac cell types and to obtain pure populations of cardiomyocytes. This review will discuss three major aspects of stem cell patent landscape: 1) patents pertaining to the basic methodology of obtaining hES and hiPS cells, 2) patents pertaining to the methods of hiPS and hES differentiation to cardiovascular cell types, and 3) patents concerned with the applied uses of differentiated cardiac cells.