PT-1037 · 2026.03
Knee · bilateral OA · stage 3
The orthopedist gave me two options. Celva gave me a third one I could live with.
§ 001 / Introduction
Repair, restore,
resilience.
Celva is a physician-led clinic inside Hospital Angeles, Tijuana. We deliver mesenchymal stem cell therapy (the body's own repair-coordinating cells) for joint pain, longevity, and the conditions standard care hasn't solved.
Takes about 2 minutes. No obligation. A Celva coordinator calls you back, usually within one business day.
Experience
18yrs
Regenerative medicine & tissue engineering
Laboratory
In-house
Proprietary cell expansion and quality control, our own lab at Hospital Angeles
Turnaround
1 day
San Diego → treatment → home
Fig. 01 · Clinical setting
Hospital Angeles, Tijuana. Regenerative medicine suite inside a tertiary hospital.
→ Physician team licensed in Mexico
→ In-house cell processing and release testing
→ Multiple allogeneic cell types, matched to your case
→ Physician team reviews every case
→ Inquiries declined when not a fit
→ ~25–30 min Escalade transfer from San Diego, door to door
→ Physician team licensed in Mexico
→ In-house cell processing and release testing
→ Multiple allogeneic cell types, matched to your case
→ Physician team reviews every case
→ Inquiries declined when not a fit
→ ~25–30 min Escalade transfer from San Diego, door to door
Prefer to watch?
A patient's experience, unscripted.
Short on time? Hear one patient describe their stem cell therapy for chronic back pain, start to finish. Keep scrolling for the full picture.
§ 002 / Treatment tracks
Three doors.
Three doors.
One standard of care.
Most patients arrive through one of three tracks. Each is physician-reviewed against the same criteria: indication, imaging, prior treatments tried, and candidacy risk. From there, the protocol and the cells are built for your case, not pulled off a shelf.
Track
Presenting condition
Delivery
Cadence
Evaluation
Track 01
Spine & joint
Chronic knee, hip, shoulder, hand, or foot pain, plus neck, back, and disc. Surgery recommended or being considered. You want a legitimate alternative.
"I want my body back. Without cutting for it."
Image-guidedTargeted injection
1–2 sessionsDay visit
Standard
→
Track 02
IV longevity
Proactive, performance-oriented, already dialed in on your health. IV MSC protocols for steadier energy, clearer thinking, and faster recovery, for patients who don't wait for a crisis.
"My body is the asset. I want to stay ahead of it."
IntravenousSystemic infusion
Single or stagedBy protocol
Standard
→
Track 03
Neurologic, cardiovascular & autoimmune
Neurologic, cardiovascular, and autoimmune disease, the conditions we built the practice around. You want a clear-eyed evaluation of whether cell therapy can help, and an honest answer if it can't.
"I don't want false hope. I want an honest conversation."
IV ± targetedProtocol-specific
IndividualizedAfter extended eval
Extended
→
Extended evaluation = additional intake by Celva's medical team (records review, imaging read, multidisciplinary consult) before a candidacy decision. Extended-tier inquiries are declined when not a fit.
§ 003 / Experience
San Diego to treatment and back. In one day.
Celva operates inside Hospital Angeles, Tijuana, Mexico's most recognized hospital name for 40 years. About 25 to 30 minutes from downtown San Diego or SAN airport, door to door.
Our team handles the day: private transport, border logistics, clinical coordination, aftercare. You handle the recovery.
§ 004 / Methodology
Five steps.
Five steps.
Physician-led throughout.
Every Celva patient moves through the same five-step process. Intake first. Celva's medical team assesses candidacy before any treatment is recommended, and a significant share of inquiries are declined.
You fly into San Diego. We take care of the day.
01
~45 min · virtual
Intake & physician review
Your first call is with a Celva patient coordinator who gathers your medical history, imaging, prior treatments, and goals. Celva's physician team at Hospital Angeles, Tijuana then reviews your case independently and returns a recommendation.
Celva coordinator → physician team
02
~25–30 min · SD → hospital
Private transport
Pickup at your San Diego hotel or SAN airport curb in our Escalade. A team member rides with you the entire time, including across the border, no pedestrian crossing, no transfers. Medical lane on the return.
Celva concierge team
03
~30 min · in-person
Clinical intake
Vitals, informed consent, and a walk-through of the day. Questions welcomed. Intake is not a formality.
Attending physician + nursing
04
~45 min · procedure
Treatment
MSC infusion (IV) or image-guided targeted injection. Hospital procedure suite, physician supervision throughout.
Attending + lab lead
05
30 · 60 · 90 day
Return & follow-up
Concierge transport back to San Diego once the physician team has authorized discharge. Most patients are home the same day. Scheduled virtual follow-ups at week 1, then months 1, 3, 5, 9, and 12.
Clinical team + portal
§ 005 / Mechanism
How the cells work.
How the cells work.
Four simultaneous mechanisms.
Mesenchymal stem cells initiate a signaling cascade that operates at four levels at once. Together these mechanisms address the upstream biology behind chronic conditions, changing the environment so the body's own repair capacity can function again. The signaling persists well beyond the cells themselves.
Multiple allogeneic cell types, matched to your case. Umbilical-cord MSCs for systemic and neurologic work, bone-marrow MSCs for orthopedic and structural cases. Screened donors. Proprietary cells, media, and protocols, manufactured in our own cGMP lab at Hospital Angeles, not bought from an outside lab. Physician supervision at a full hospital. Not a wellness clinic.
Anti-inflammatory
Reduces the chronic inflammatory signaling that contributes to pain, dysfunction, and progressive tissue damage, systemically.
Anti-fibrotic
Attenuates the fibrotic cascade that replaces functional tissue with scar tissue, a downstream consequence of chronic inflammation.
Immunomodulatory
Recalibrates dysregulated immune activity across the body without systemic immune suppression.
Pro-angiogenic
Supports formation of new vascular networks, contributing to tissue perfusion and a more favorable systemic repair environment.
- Source
- Multiple allogeneic types, matched to case
- Screening
- 16-panel donor
- Expansion
- Hospital cleanroom
- Cryo
- Proprietary media
- Delivery
- IV or image-guided
- Supervision
- Attending physician
§ 006 / Clinical follow-up
Patients,
Patients,
not case studies.
Representative cases from our clinical follow-up records. De-identified. Verified with patient consent. Timeline is the patient's own. Individual results vary.
PT-1052 · 2025.11
IV · systemic recovery
I stopped waiting for something to go wrong before doing anything about it.
PT-1063 · 2026.01
Shoulder · rotator cuff partial
The surgeon said shave-and-hope. I wanted a different conversation.
§ 007 / Frequently asked
The questions everyone asks first.
Most patients research for weeks before reaching out. These are the questions we hear on almost every first call. Straight answers. Not reassurances.
Q.01 Why isn't this FDA-approved in the United States? +
MSC therapies are still working through U.S. clinical trials. That process takes years, even for treatments with strong evidence. Hospital Angeles is regulated by COFEPRIS, Mexico's federal regulatory body, where licensed physicians administer cell-based therapies in a fully supervised clinical setting. Patients access the treatment now, under physician oversight, rather than waiting another decade for U.S. approval.
Q.02 Is it safe to travel to Tijuana for treatment? +
Most patients ask this, and they should. The Tijuana in the headlines is not the Tijuana you will see. Your day is door to door: picked up at your San Diego hotel or the airport, driven in a private Escalade with a team member beside you, treated inside Hospital Angeles (a full hospital, not a wellness center), and returned through the CBP medical lane. We have run this route since 2009. The only Mexico you experience is a car and a hospital, and you are never alone for any of it.
Q.03 Where do the cells come from? +
Umbilical cord is our most common source, donated after full-term healthy births and screened against the same panel used for blood and organ donation, but it isn't the only one. We match the cell type to your case, using bone-marrow-derived allogeneic MSCs for orthopedic and structural work, with chondrocytes added in select cartilage cases. The cells are grown in our own cGMP lab at Hospital Angeles by Celva's medical team, using a proprietary culture medium and expansion process, and preserved by a proprietary method. Most clinics don't run a lab; they buy frozen vials from an outside supplier. The cells, the medium, and the process are developed in-house and used nowhere else, so the cell product you receive is unique to Celva. They are allogeneic, which means they came from a donor; you don't go through a harvest procedure yourself.
Q.04 How do I find out what my treatment would involve? +
Start an intake. A Celva patient coordinator gathers your imaging, history, and goals and passes them to Celva's medical team for independent review. They return a direct read on whether you're a fit and exactly what your treatment path would look like. Nothing is scheduled until that review is complete and you decide to move forward.
Q.05 How do I know if I'm a good candidate? +
Honest answer: not everyone is. Our coordinator collects your medical history, current condition, imaging, and goals, and passes it to Celva's medical team for independent review. A significant share of inquiries are declined. If you're not a fit, we'll say so plainly.
§ 008 / Book
Start with a conversation.
No pressure. No commitments. Your first call is with a Celva patient coordinator who collects your information and passes it to Celva's medical team for independent review. Bring every question you have: about your condition, the treatment, the process, and whether Celva is the right fit.
These therapies are not FDA-approved. Treatments are performed in Mexico by licensed physicians in a hospital setting. Individual results may vary. Not medical advice.