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physiologically relevant cells from validated pathogen-free sources for applications such as cell replacement therapies, drug discovery, disease modelling and toxicology studies. The ground-breaking emerging field of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) in which somatic cells can be reprogrammed to a pluripotent stem cell state1 has further increased interest in stem cell technology. iPS cells present the opportunity to generate patient and disease specific cells for cell therapy and disease modelling. However, a critical barrier to the use of stem cells in these therapeutic and drug development applications is the difficulty in routinely directing their differentiation to reproducibly and cost-effectively generate pure populations of specific cell types. In this article we will describe the current state-of-the-art in stem cell differentiation and some of the latest innovative technologies that are greatly accelerating improvements thus driving the adoption of stem cells in biopharmaceutical applications.