Thursday the company announced the commercial launch of iCell Cardiomyocytes for use in testing of new drug candidates by the pharmaceutical industry. These human heart cells are designed to aid drug discovery and improve the predictability of drug compound efficacy and toxicity screens, weeding out ineffective and potentially toxic compounds early in the pharmaceutical pipeline process before significant time and resources have been invested.
iCell Cardiomyocytes are the first product developed by anyone from iPS cells and were discovered by CDI senior research fellow Junying Yu, Ph.D., then a postdoctoral research associate in the University of Wisconsin-Madison laboratory of James Thomson. Yu's discovery followed a similar and almost simultaneous discovery by Shinya Yamanaka at Kyoto University.
Derived from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, iCell Cardiomyocytes spontaneously beat in vitro and exhibit the electrophysiological and biochemical properties of normal human heart cells. Thus, both logically and according to Cellular Dynamics, iCell Cardiomyocytes provide significant advances over non-human cell models, which may exhibit a different response than human tissue. The same advantage is suggested to hold over tumor-derived cell models, which are genetically different than normal cells; and cadaveric cells, which exhibit batch-to-batch variability, de-differentiate under in vitro conditions, and exhibit non-cardiomyocyte behavior.
iCell Cardiomyocytes are produced in-house by Cellular Dynamics from a master cell bank of iPS cells expanded from a single clonal population reprogrammed from fully mature human cells using Dr. Thomson's patented technology. Cellular Dynamics has reportedly developed a proprietary process to industrialize iCell Cardiomyocytes production so that the cardiomyocytes are manufactured at the high quantity, quality and purity required by pharmaceutical companies. The company has successfully engaged in pre-launch validation testing with several pharmaceutical customers.
James Thomson, chief scientific officer, had the following to say about the iCell launch: "Rapid application of stem cell technology has been a goal both of my laboratory at the University of Wisconsin and Cellular Dynamics. Utilizing human iPS cells for new drug toxicity testing should improve the drug discovery process in a timeframe that has an effect on human healthcare now, not 10 years from now. Ultimately applications of stem cell technology in drug discovery will provide great utility and enable movement toward a long-term goal of cellular-based therapeutics and personalized medicine."
Adapted from the Cellular Dynamics announcement.
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