The Regeneration Station

Q Therapeutics, a cell therapy company focusing on neural applications, recently announced a $15M series B financing that included funding from multiple venture capital (VC) groups as well as biotech tools provider Invitrogen. Q’s lead product, Q-Cells™, is an allogeneic product intended to restore function to damaged neurons by providing trophic (e.g. cytokines, growth [...]

Filed under: Bioprocessing, Clinical Trials, Company Profiles, MS, Manufacturing, Neural Repair, Q Therapeutics, Regenerative Medicine, adult stem cell, stem cells | Tagged: symbiotic business relationships, cell therapy tools, cell therapy development, GMP-grade kits and reagents | 2 Comments »

Cytori Therapeutics announced that they have enrolled their first two patients in an acute myocardial infarction clinical trial using adipose-derived cells prepared using their Celution™ device. The Celution™ device is an automated, tissue processing unit that isolates cells from adipose tissue derived via liposuction.

Filed under: Bioprocessing, Clinical Trials, Company Profiles, Cytori, Device-centric cell therapies, Regenerative Medicine, adult stem cell, autologous, cardiac regeneration, cell delivery, patient specific cell therapy, personalized medicine, stem cells | No Comments »

You have to hand it to Tengion, they are trying to tackle one of the largest challenges I can think of: producing tissue engineered organs and tissues from a patients own cells in unrelated indications (bladder, blood vessel, and kidney). While moving through clinical trials Tengion will surely be transforming patients lives with these [...]

Filed under: Biomaterials, Bioprocessing, Clinical Trials, Company Profiles, JNJ, Regenerative Medicine, Tengion, autologous, combination products, patient specific cell therapy, personalized medicine, tissue engineered product, vascular regeneration | Tagged: autologous therapies, company prifile, tissue engineering company | 3 Comments »

Pervasis Therapeutics announced that they have raised $9.75M to further develop their allogenic tissue engineered endothelial cell (EC) product for vascular health indications. Their Vascugel product is comprised of ECs grown in 3D collagen sponges that are implanted externally on blood vessels to prevent them from occluding. Pervasis has proven safety in a Phase I [...]

Filed under: Biomaterials, Bioprocessing, Clinical Trials, Company Profiles, Manufacturing, Pervasis, Regenerative Medicine, cell delivery, combination products, tissue engineered product, vascular regeneration | Tagged: end stage renal disease, endothelial cells, ESRD, gelfoam, tissue engineering, vascular health | No Comments »

The WuXi acquisition of Apptec (posted last week) is continuing the trend of consolidation in the cell manufacturing sector. It is similar to Lonza’s (a Swiss company) purchase of Cambrex’s biologics division in 2006, and GE’s purchase of Wave Biotech in mid-2007. Lonza is currently the largest manufacturer of cells for therapy, and has process [...]

Filed under: Apptec, BD, Bioprocessing, Invitrogen, JNJ, Lonza, Manufacturing, Progenitor Cell Therapy, Regenerative Medicine, Stem Cells Inc, WuXi Pharmatech | 1 Comment »

WuXi (pronounced Woo-See) Pharmatech, a contract research organization (CRO) based in China, announced the acquisition of MN-based Apptec Laboratory Services. WuXi acquired Apptec to gain an immediate US footprint, better access to the US market, and important biologics expertise to expand outside the world of small molecules. This biologics expertise includes Apptec’s cell [...]

Filed under: Apptec, BD, Bioprocessing, Company Profiles, Invitrogen, JNJ, Lonza, Manufacturing, Regenerative Medicine, WuXi Pharmatech, business models | 1 Comment »

There have been some interesting news releases this week, including Osiris’ fast track designation, Cytori obtaining a 510k for their fat cleaner (not their stem cell isolation device, just a clinical fat cleaner), and the angiogenesis and liver regeneration capabilities of Aldagen’s aldehyde dehydrogenase positive sorted cells. However, the press release that really caught my [...]

Filed under: BioTime, Bioprocessing, Embryome Sciences, Regenerative Medicine, business models | Tagged: bioprocess supply, BioTime, business model, Embryome Sciences, Michael West, spinnout | No Comments »

Organogenesis, one of the pioneering tissue engineering companies, is partnering with China’s National Tissue Engineering Center (NTEC) to bring Organogenesis’ regenerative therapies to the Chinese marketplace. NTEC is a Shanghai-based private company that is funded by the Chinese government, and it was launched by a Harvard/MIT-trained plastic surgeon, Dr. Yiling Cao. The two companies [...]

Filed under: Bioprocessing, Joint Ventures, Manufacturing, Regenerative Medicine, business models | Tagged: china, China's National Tissue Engineering Center, joint venture, Organogenesis, Regenerative Medicine | 1 Comment »

One of the aspects of my science career that I really enjoy is the career coaching that I provide, and receive. I actually spend a lot of time telling students that are graduating, whether it is at the Bachelors, Masters, or PhD level, about industry, and helping them get a feel for what the job [...]

Filed under: Bioprocessing, Job search, Regenerative Medicine | Tagged: Bioprocessing, cell manufacturing, Job search, quality control, Regenerative Medicine | 1 Comment »

I have been playing with the idea of a post related to the area of therapeutic cell bioprocessing, and today one of the leaders in the field became an acquisition target. Progenitor Cell Therapy (PCT) provides process development and manufacturing support for institutions and cell therapy companies, and has over 30,000 cell procedures under [...]

Filed under: Bioprocessing | No Comments »