Over the next five years, the drugmaker will create dual facilities in the UK and Massachusetts to use stem cells to treat heart disease, diabetes, cancer and vision loss common among the elderly. In doing so, Pfizer is touting that it becomes the first big pharma to have such a dedicated effort, which will include hiring 70 scientists to staff the labs.

The drugmaker, which calls its new effort the Global Regenerative Medicine Research unit, will work with both embryonic stem cells, derived from days-old embryos, and adult stem cells, found in the mature tissue of living beings (see Pfizer statement).

Alastair Riddell, ceo at Stem Cell Sciences in the UK, says the move is an encouraging sign that big pharma is prepared to make big investments in stem cell research. “It has been a long time coming,” he tells The Financial Times.

Other drugmakers are also interested in the technology, though. As Bloomberg News points out, Glaxo signed a four-year, $25 million deal with Harvard University to conduct research; Johnson & Johnson’s venture capital unit took an equity stake in Tengion, which is making bladders and other organs in the lab, and led a $25 million round of funding last year for Novocell, which is using embryonic cells to develop diabetes therapies. And the venture funds of Novartis and Roche helped bankroll Cellerix, which is testing stem cells from patient fat to treat rare skin conditions.

“The major pharma companies are moving into the field and taking a very strong position,” Alan Trounson, president of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, the state agency that funds stem-cell research, tells Bloomberg. “We feel they’re like big ships coming together with us. It’s starting to be an armada.”

“Originally, pharma stayed away because of the time line, knowing that stem cell-based therapies will be years down the road,” Brock Reeve, executive director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, tells Bloomberg. “Where things have changed in the last year is that we can now create cells of interest in particular diseases” by using new techniques, including a method to reprogram adult cells into the equivalent of embryonic cells.