Under the terms of the agreement, iPS Academia Japan will receive royalties from Univercell-Biosolutions (UB). Other terms are not disclosed. Both iPS Academia Japan and UB expect this accord to be followed by further business collaborations.
iPSC technology has the capacity to transform ordinary human skin cells into pluripotent stem cells, with the same characteristics and potential as embryonic stem cells. It is based on work by Prof. Shinya Yamanaka and his collaborators over the last few years. Coupled with UB technology, it will provide a powerful resource for producing on a large scale human cardiomyocytes derived from iPSCs. The provision of a homogeneous population of cardiac cells that are close to human cardiomyocytes constitutes an invaluable tool for early and efficient prediction of cardiotoxicity in new drug candidates.
UB is one of the few companies worldwide to have obtained the iPS Academia Japan’s iPSC patent license and the deal further establishes the company as a new leader in iPSC and human cardiomyocytes technologies. UB’s unique technology specifically selects a population composed of more than 99 per cent pre-cardiomyocytes. This overcomes a major industrial bottleneck to obtain a sufficiently enriched population of cardiomyocytes.
“This license strengthens dramatically our competitive position in the market and provides pharmaceutical and biotech companies developing drug discovery and safety tools with a cutting edge cardiac cell,” said Michel Puceat, Univercell-Biosolutions’ founder and chairman of its Scientific Advisory Board.
UB’s goal is to provide pharmaceutical and biotechnologies industries with innovative solutions to reduce drastically the alarming drug failure rate during clinical trials. The company plans to release several additional versions from its original version of cardiomyocytes within 2011 to meet industry requirements and enlarge its strategic products portfolio.
“We are pleased to grant the non-exclusive license and build a good relationship with Univercell-Biosolutions,” said Osamu Yoshida, M.D., Ph.D., president and Chief Executive Officer of iPS Academia Japan. “We expect that the association of iPSC’ technology with Univercell-Biosolutions’ approach will accelerate the development of various drugs for the benefit of patients worldwide.”
"The UB solution is already validated and operational using iPS Academia technology and the two technologies together open new avenues to bring to the market large scale production of human cardiomyocytes in sufficient volume and quality to satisfy the needs of the pharmaceutical industry,” said Guillaume Costecalde, Univercell-Biosolutions’ chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “We see this as an exceptional scientific and market opportunity and an important plank in our joint strategy to bring iPSC technology to industry worldwide.”
About iPS Academia Japan, Inc.
iPS Academia Japan, Inc. (AJ) is an affiliate of Kyoto University, and its main role is, among other activities, to manage and utilize the patents and other intellectual properties held/controlled by Kyoto University and other universities in the field of iPSC technologies so that the research results might contribute to health and welfare worldwide. AJ was established at Kyoto in June 2008. AJ's patents portfolio consists of approximately thirty patent families (the total number of patent applications is about 120 cases) in the iPSC technology as of September 2010, and approximately 30 license arrangements have been done with domestic and international enterprises.
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About Univercell-Biosolutions S.A.S.
Univercell-Biosolutions S.A.S. is a leading developer of stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes for drug development. UB has developed a unique technique to derive cardiomyocytes from pluripotent stem cells and to select a pure population of cardiomyocytes. This technique, based on a sorting of early cardiovascular progenitors using a membrane specific antigen recognition, is totally physiological. The robustness of the protocol has been published in several recent international publications. Demonstration of the production of cardiomyocytes from iPSC has been published in Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Further information can be found at
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