Sistemic Ltd Announce Innovate UK Grant to Develop Grounbreaking miRNA-based Assay
Released: Thursday 22nd June 2017
Sistemic awarded an Innovate UK grant to develop a groundbreaking, novel miRNA-based assay for accurate assessment of pluripotent stem cell contamination in derived cell therapy products
Glasgow, Scotland, 22th June 2017
Sistemic Ltd announced today the award of an Innovate UK grant to further develop, to a market-ready stage, its groundbreaking prototype microRNA-based assay for accurate assessment of pluripotent stem cell contamination in derived cell therapy products. Sistemic will be partnered in this project by LGC, the UK National Measurement Laboratory and Designated Institute for chemical and bio-measurement.
Cell therapies are seen as the future of treatment in a number of therapeutic areas including diabetes and cardiovascular disease and are expected to revolutionise medical care for a range of currently untreatable diseases. Cell therapies are increasingly using pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) to generate derived cell therapy products. However, PSCs, by their nature, have the potential to form tumours which raises concerns around PSC-derived cell product safety. Therefore, there is a need to demonstrate, sensitively, quickly and accurately, the level of contaminating pluripotent stem cells in a derived cell therapy product. Sistemic has developed a prototype product based around miRNA biomarkers to detect contaminating pluripotent stem cells in a derived cell therapy product in a simple, highly sensitive and rapid test format. This partnership will support Sistemic in order to further develop their prototype product and make it ready for the rapidly developing market in PSC-derived cell therapy products
Sistemic will be supported by the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK, under “The Analysis for Innovators” grant.
