Stem cells in Panama: medical tourism without evidence

A market that grew in plain sight

Panama became a destination for stem cell medical tourism, with exposure on US podcasts such as Joe Rogan's⁵. In July 2026, a Stem Cell Reports paper by researchers from the Gorgas Institute and the National Research Bioethics Committee (CNBI) described the market: at least six companies by late 2025, treatments of $5,000 to $50,000 sold as tourism packages and promoted on Instagram, YouTube and Facebook¹⁶.

The authors were blunt: "The lack of enforcement by regulatory bodies [...] has likely facilitated the growth of this unproven industry in Panama"⁶. The CNBI sent at least six warnings to MINSA between 2015 and 2025, and since 2018 no stem cell clinical trial protocol had been submitted to the CNBI¹⁶. The phenomenon is not unique to Panama: in 2016, an analysis of online marketing found widespread direct-to-consumer promotion of unapproved stem cell interventions by US-based businesses¹¹.

What the rules say

Under Executive Decree 179 of 2018, aligned with the recommendations of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR)⁷, the only clinical application with proven evidence is hematopoietic transplant; today only four centers hold a license to perform it¹⁶. International transplant guidelines reserve the procedure for defined indications, mainly diseases of the blood and bone marrow¹⁵. Any other use is considered experimental and may only be done within research protocols approved by the CNBI and the DNFD¹. The DNFD has not registered advanced-therapy stem cell products for other uses². The picture is similar in the United States: the FDA states that the only approved stem cell products are blood-forming stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood, and only for disorders of blood production¹³; its officials have publicly warned about the risks of unproven therapies¹².

2026: an alert and administrative files

In August 2026 the CNBI issued an alert over "tumors, blindness and death" associated with unproven therapies. Its president, Luis Coronado, summed it up: "That a therapy uses stem cells does not mean it is safe or effective"². In late August, MINSA reported that it had inspected two establishments and opened administrative files over possible violations, including missing operating permits and unregistered products³.

The risks are not theoretical. In 2016, physicians at Brigham and Women's Hospital reported in the New England Journal of Medicine a glioproliferative lesion of the spinal cord in a patient as a complication of "stem-cell tourism"⁹. In 2017, three patients with macular degeneration developed severe vision loss in both eyes after intraocular injections of adipose-derived "stem cells" at a US clinic⁸. A 2018 review compiled published adverse events after unproven interventions and analyzed the factors behind the rise of this tourism¹⁰. The FDA itself reports that it has received reports of blindness, tumor formation and infections due to the use of unapproved products¹⁴.

The best-known case

Panama's Stem Cell Institute, run by Neil Riordan, is the most visible⁵. In 2023 the FDA sent a warning letter to another Riordan company in Texas, Signature Biologics: its umbilical cord product "is not the subject of an approved biologics license application", and it did not test lots for endotoxin before release. The letter does not mention Panama⁴. Biologist Paul Knoepfler, a critic of these clinics, cited in 2021 the clinic's published prices: $15,825 for children and $23,150 for adults, and noted that its clinical studies "generally do not have placebo controls, randomization, or double-blinding"⁵.