TRC Technology

Aastrom’s cell manufacturing process begins with the collection of a small aspirate of bone marrow from the patient's hip in an outpatient procedure. The sample of bone marrow is shipped to a manufacturing facility, and transferred into Aastrom's cell manufacturing system. In this fully automated, sterile process, the stem and progenitor cell populations present in the bone marrow are greatly expanded to yield cellular products based on Aastrom’s Tissue Repair Cell (TRC) technology. The finished TRC-based product is shipped back to the physician who administers it to the original patient as an autologous cell therapy. Aastrom is currently refining each of its TRC-based products to better meet the needs and set the foundation to establish strong brands within each therapeutic area, as follows:

• Vascular Regeneration – Vascular Repair Cells (VRCs)
  
  
• Bone Regeneration – Bone Repair Cells (BRCs)
  
  
• Cardiac Regeneration – Cardiac Repair Cells (CRCs)
  
  
• Neural Regeneration – Neural Repair Cells (NRCs)

Proprietary Technology

Aastrom's TRC technology includes a proprietary cell manufacturing platform system that combines Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) compliance with the Company's patented "Single-Pass Perfusion" (SPP) technology. SPP is a proprietary technology that controls gas and cell culture media exchange to enable the replication of early-stage stem and progenitor cells while preventing their differentiation into mature cells.

Adult Stem Cells

The starting source for all TRC-based products is autologous bone marrow - or bone marrow collected directly from the patient who will also be treated with the patient-specific TRC-based product.