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This is Alan Condon with the Becker's podcast,
and I am delighted to be joined today
by Dana Herrera,
the chief commercial officer of the Regenerative Medicine
Institute.
Dana, pleasure to have you on the Beckers
podcast with us today.
For those of our listeners who might be
as well acquainted with you or the Regenerative
Medicine Institute, do do you mind taking a
moment to fill us in on your background
and the work that you do?
Yes. Absolutely. Happy to be here. Thank you
for having me. And absolutely. So our company,
RMI or the Regenerative Medicine Institute, which tends
to be a mouthful, so we go by
RMI for short, is actually located in Costa
Rica. We are a United States based healthcare
company. We just perform all of our regenerative
medicine treatments and therapies in Costa Rica because
we are licensed through the minister of health
in Costa Rica, which
as most people know, there are some stringent
regulations that have been put in place in
The United States healthcare system by the FDA.
Right? So our focus and what we do
is really aiming to slow down, reverse the
aging process at the cellular level
in conjunction with treating the collateral damage of
aging, because I like to say nobody wants
to live longer if they don't feel good.
And so what we have found is the
majority of our patients, seventy percent in fact,
actually come to us
due to orthopedic or joint pain.
Living in pain is is a is a
common thing, I think, for most people 40
years old and up, especially entrepreneurs,
competitive individuals, and and things of that nature
who really want to find alternatives to surgery,
to pain pills, to cortisone injections, and so
that is a driving factor,
in our patients' lives to come to Costa
Rica and visit us for regenerative medicine treatments.
Fantastic. So I'd love to find out,
when you think about stem cells, particularly as
it relates maybe to orthopedics, to aging,
What are some of the industry trends that
you're currently watching today in the health care
space? Yeah. It's a wonderful question. So a
little bit of background on me. I've been
in health care for fifteen years. I was
on the traditional medicine side for about ten
of those years and regenerative for the last
five. I've I've been with this organization since
inception, which is right at the four year
mark now. And so I've seen it all.
I've I've literally seen everything when you could
do stem cells in The United States, when
it was the wild west, to the FDA
coming down and banning the use of live
expanded umbilical cord stem cells and other biologics
in June of twenty twenty one, to now
where it's even going today where I I
do believe those will start to lift and
and become less stringent with with the new
administration in place. Right? But I think it's
really important. And what a lot of people
don't understand is when you say the word
stem cells, a stem cell is not a
stem cell is not a stem cell. Right?
There are different types of stem cells. There
are different levels of quality, and there are
different levels of what those stem cells are
able to produce in terms of outcome
and safety.
And so my passion and and what I
love doing is really educating people and helping
them understand
what's available into the for you in The
United States is quite limited.
It's all regenerative medicine, so that's great, that's
wonderful, it's fantastic,
but the capabilities in terms of a scale
of one to 10 and what you can
get in The US are very small,
because we're not allowed to do culture expanded
umbilical cord stem cells in The United States,
the type of cells you get, whether that's
exosomes or an amniotic fluid injection
or PRP are really just growth factors. Right?
And when you utilize a live umbilical cord
stem cell like we do in Costa Rica,
the benefits are exponential because you have the
growth factors. They actually release exosomes. They release
a a lot of different the cytokines and
all these different things that actually interact and
help your cells do their job better, so
your body can actually start to heal itself.
And so it's really interesting in in The
United States, again, what what we can do
here and depending on where you go, and
you're gonna hear different things from different people.
Right? Whether that's autologous cells, which comes from
your own body, which is the same age
you are and can't be standardized.
What we can do is standardize ourselves just
like a drug. And so every single time
we deliver a treatment and we say, for
instance, we're going to give you a hundred
million umbilical cord cells in an IV, 25,000,000
throughout the different joints in your body,
those cells have gone through a quality assurances
and control process from start to finish
the exact same way every single time
to the point that at the end, before
we administer it to you, an hour in
fact, we are actually testing those cells for
viability.
And when you're talking about stem cells, viability
is a key word. So first, the two
things you wanna consider are safety and viability.
Right? Safety is, have they undergone a screening
process? Are they tested for diseases? Are they
tested for differentiation?
Are are they really truly isolated mesenchymal
stem cells that give you the most bang
for your buck, if you will,
but have gone through the proper process to
ensure that you are going to come out
safely on the end. Right? There's not gonna
be an infection. There's not gonna be bacteria.
There's some something negative is not going to
occur. Right? And that is our our number
one priority. The second part to that is
efficacy and how do they work. And so
when you're talking about stem cells and you're
talking about viability,
the higher the viability,
the better. The less the viability, meaning how
many cells are alive, the more you're going
to need. Right? And so in our world,
we ensure
and standardize ourselves to produce 80 to 90%
viable cells. You get a batch certificate that
states everything that they've been tested for and
then the viability right before we give them
to you. And I think it's really interesting
because I'll talk to patients and they'll say,
hey. Well, I just talked to this place
in, you know, this other country, and they
wanna give me 250,000,000
cells. Can you guys match that? I'm like,
okay. I understand our human brains, you know,
want to equate
quantity
with better. Right? But in the stem cell
world, that's not always the case.
However,
if you were, say, getting a batch of
hundred million stem cells and they're only 50%
viable, then you're gonna have to double that
amount to achieve the same result.
I I wanted a quick follow-up here because
this kind of ties into something that I
wanted to pick your brains about as it
relates to patients, as it relates to education.
I think you did a fantastic job of
kinda breaking down what actually stem cells are,
what they do.
To my mind, it's it's using things that
are already produced in the body, right, to
ultimately
give the body a boost, whether that's healing,
aging, etcetera.
Do you find that
how big of a factor is patient education
for this in this area for you, and
how do you go about educating and forming
patients about some of these procedures?
Huge. It is huge. It is, you know,
till every everyone heals. Right? Until everyone hears
because it it there's such a big component,
because obviously, as you know, I mean, you
get in Google, you type in stem cells,
and you can find what what you seek
you will find. Right? You can find any
and everything when you get on Google. So
educating people and even doctors, I've educated many
a doctors,
because even they don't know. You only know
what you've been taught. Right? And that's not
something that we teach in the edge in
The United States and and medical school. And
so for us, we really try to make
it a point, and and we did this
in the past quite often. We need to
do it again. But doing webinars,
just completely free of charge, it's usually myself
and two of our physicians.
We've even had our microbiologist
on on one of the webinars, and we
just invite everybody. Just come if you have
questions, if if you're curious about how all
of this works, ask us because
we are extremely transparent with everything from start
to finish. And that is the one piece
of advice I would give any listener. When
you are going out to to do some
research and determine, hey, I really would like
to avoid surgery on my knee, so I'm
gonna look into stem cells. But there are
questions that you need to be asking these
regenerative medicine companies in terms of how they,
you know,
asking these regenerative medicine companies
in terms of how they do they have
their own lab first and foremost?
Having your own lab is absolutely crucial.
And then if they do have their own
lab, do they control the process from start
to finish? Because what we'll see in The
United States a lot of times is there's
different labs that are doing different pieces of
it, and as you know, the more it's
being touched by outside sources and parties, the
more room you have for error. Right? You
lose the control.
So asking, do you have your own lab?
Where do you obtain these cells? For instance,
we obtain ourselves
through the Wharton's jelly of the umbilical cord.
We are screening moms who want to donate
their cord because they're going to have a
plan c section. We're screening the moms the
moment we get that that sheet of paper
that says, yes. This this mother is gonna
donate her cord. Then we are in the
OR the day the baby is born. We
collect the cord to ensure the sterility, and
the cord never ever ever leaves
our our presence and and and our authority
in our in our lab. Right? So we
do the whole process, the screening and everything.
Are they screened? Are they tested for diseases?
Are they tested for differentiation?
What's really interesting when you take an umbilical
cord is that there's all sorts of different
types of cells. Right? The mesenchymal stem cells,
that's the one we're talking about that are
really used for healing and regeneration,
those are located in there too. But the
reason you want culture expanded cells is because
by expanding them, it's not that you're just
cloning them. Think of it as a strainer.
Right? So every time your culture expanding them
and you're growing these cells, they're getting even
more isolated.
The cells that are not pure MSCs
go away, and you isolate the pure MSCs,
which is mesenchymal stem cells, so that you
have the the purest and safest and most
potent
umbilical cord or or stem cell to do
the job you want it to do, which
is to reduce inflammation, to communicate with your
cells. And you said it perfectly
to give your body the boost that it
needs. Right? So a lot of lot of
questions you need to be asking when you're
doing your research, and, again, I'm I'm happy
to to to type those up and share
those with you for anybody that would like
those. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. That'd be super helpful.
I'm really it's such an exciting it's such
an innovative space in health care. But kind
of going back to what you'd mentioned at
the top of the podcast,
slightly constrained in what can be offered in
The US under the FDA.
I'm curious with the new administration,
the regulatory landscape.
Is this something that you're excited about when
you think about the future, potentially more of
these
procedures,
being being available to in The US,
as well as Costa Rica?
Yes. Absolutely.
So right now, I'm I'm not gonna lie.
It is expensive. Right? And and that's really
how anything starts out. If you if you
look back on our history,
anything new is going to start out expensive
until it can be proven then adopt adopted
more publicly. Right? So right now, it is
expensive, but my goal is to have this
available to any and everybody who wants it.
Because then we can really start looking at
optional, you know, paths to healing outside what
we've been taught our whole life is are
the only options. Again, surgery pills, you know,
steroid epidurals, things like that. And so what
I really want to do and and why
I love the the new administration and and
RFK who's looking at, you know, the FDA
and and the food we're eating and the
things we're consuming and what are we putting
in our body. Honestly, I think it's gonna
take a few years. I really do. I
don't think it's gonna happen overnight,
but
the goal is to is to really get
with the administration
and say, hey. Let me educate you guys
as well because you guys aren't stem cell
experts. Right? Let me educate you guys on
the right way this should be done and
how it should be adopted in The United
States to ensure
every single American, and then second, healing to
every single American. So I think there is
a path forward there, and that is something
that is on my radar that I am
working on. I will I will tell you
this,
our lab director, Natalia, has been doing this
for the last fifteen years.
She worked for a previous clinic who one
of the the biggest who's been on the
map for a long time. It's where Mel
Gibson's dad went and went on Joe Rogan,
and so she was with that guy before
he was even on the map. And so
what's really interesting about that is she has
15
of clinical experience
doing this in human beings.
I don't know anybody else that has that
kind of experience. There's a lot of doctors
out there and a lot of smart people
who have been doing this for maybe a
few years or have been doing this in
a research setting. But when you're talking about
these types of preventative treatments or antiaging or,
for orthopedic. Right? You really want a group
of individuals
and and a team in a lab that
has been doing it in humans and has
never had a serious complication. And that is
one thing that I can say with absolute
certainty, we've never harmed anybody. And for me,
humanity in The United States and Americans deserve
medicine that heals, not harms. Right? And so
taking that information and going to the administration
or the insurance companies and going, guys, look,
this is safe and this works.
You just have to have the right secret
sauce, so to speak. Because, again, every process
isn't created equal and every stem cell isn't
created equal.
Mhmm.
Yeah. That that secret sauce,
if you will. I'm curious,
last question I'd love to kinda get your
perspective on before we wrap up. When you
think about,
the Regenerative Medicine Institute, when you think about
growth over the next, say, twelve to twenty
four months, where are the key areas that
you're looking to focus in, hone in on,
to grow?
So when we think about growth, and this
is a great question, and this is a
question we've been asking ourselves as well. Obviously,
treating patients in the clinic is is one
area. Right? We wanna continue to do that,
and we're continuing to get the word out
there and let people know, hey. What's available?
And the sole purpose of that is just
to give you the information. Right?
We're gonna let you know, hey. This is
an option, and then you make whatever decision
is best for you in your life. So,
of course, we wanna grow in terms of
expanding the clinic and the number of patients
we see, but we're also looking at our
two other components, which is our research teams.
We have an entire research division that is
looking at new protocols, new developments, whether that's
MS, whether that's Parkinson's. We actually met and
we had a discussion about infertility
and being able to go in and inject
the ovary with these stem cells to help
produce eggs, right, versus having to go through
that horrible experience of of of IVF. I
know it's it's really tough on on women
and then their poor husbands as well, But
just looking at new protocols, so it's almost
like three pillars if you will. Right? It's
the clinic where we're treating the patients. It's
the new research and and the protocols we're
developing. Two of our two of our doctors
are actually studying at Harvard right now to
to develop new protocols. MS is one of
those.
And then, of course, the lab. Right? So
that's our other entity where we produce the
secret sauce, if you will, that allows us
to do the things that we do. So
looking at all three of those aspects, how
they tie in, how we can grow them,
and how we can really reach more of
the world
with these treatments that are, again, safe and
effective. Because that's ultimately what medicine was created
to be in the first place. I think
we've just got a little off track, but,
hopefully, we can get back there.
I love it. Safety and viability. Right? Yes.
Thank you. Dana,
Dana, it's been an absolute pleasure. I've certainly
learned a lot,
about stem cells with the work that you
do, the regenerative medicine in institute, and no
doubt a lot of our listeners will have
as well. Really looking forward to picking things
up, put you down the line to hear
more about the business's growth. Thank you so
much for taking the time out of your
busy schedule to speak with us today.