From The nose cells that may help the paralysed walk again found via Slashdot.

This is not the most popular way of attempting to heal spinal injuries. That would be to produce patented chemicals, which drug companies can make and sell. What we’re proposing could be carried out by any very modestly equipped hospital with neurosurgery. There are no patents. It makes it a very unpopular form of research.

We’re producing a procedure where the patient is their own cure. You can’t patent a patient’s own cells, thank God.

— Prof Geoffrey Raisman