January 10, 2012
Cellartis is a partner in InnovaLiv, a major multinational regenerative medicine project funded by the European Commission
JANUARY 10, 2012, Gothenburg, Sweden
The general scientific objectives of the InnovaLiv project are to « develop scale-up procedures for human embryonic stem cells (hESC) and to produce GMP-grade tissue culture reagents that will facilitate large-scale differentiation of hESC to hepatocytes ». InnovaLiv aims to provide the EU healthcare system with a renewable and reliable source of functional clinical-grade hepatocytes generated from hESC lines. Rigorous standards to ensure the safety and quality of these cells will be developed. The GMP-compliant hepatocytes will be prepared as a prototype therapy aiming at treating one patient on the basis of a compassive use protocol. Commercialisation of the novel GMP-grade stem cell derived hepatocytes will be performed by Cellartis AB, Cellectis Stem Cells, that will assume a leading role in InnovaLiv.
Transplantation of donor hepatocytes has become an alternative to liver transplantation for the treatment of liver diseases. However, in addition to the complication imposed by severe shortage of donor livers, adult hepatocytes cannot be expanded in vitro. Therefore, there is a critical need to explore the potential of human stem cells, such as hESC, to generate sufficient quantities of functional human hepatocytes. However, the production of safe and functional human hepatocytes from hESC under GMP conditions for clinical applications remains to be achieved.
About Cellectis stem cells: Cellectis stem cells speeds up the development of stem cell technology in particular to find a robust and reproducible way of controlling stem cell production and differentiation. Through the sharing of knowledge and expertise developed by the the two companies forming Cellectis stem cells - Cellartis and Ectycell – Cellectis stem cells becomes a major, long-term and stable industrial player in the global marketplace.
Cellartis AB is a premier provider of stem cell derived products and technologies which will drive unprecedented innovations in drug discovery and regenerative medicine today and in the future. For more information, visit www.cellartis.com.
About Cellectis : Cellectis improves life by applying its genome engineering expertise to a broad range of applications, including human therapeutics, biological research and agriculture. Cellectis is listed on the NYSE-Euronext Paris Alternext market (code: ALCLS). To find out more, visit www.cellectis.com.