Biopta Stretches Blood Vessel Viability Using Abcellute Cell Preservation Technology

Main Category: Cardiovascular / Cardiology
Article Date: 15 Nov 2007 - 11:00 PDT

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Early stage studies using human tissue samples are increasingly recognised as key to reducing drug failure rates. Now in a major breakthrough Abcellute's non-cryogenic cell preservation technology has been successful trialled by Biopta Ltd, a CRO specializing in human tissue in vitro pharmacology. Biopta were able to use Abcellute's matrix to maintain the viability of fresh blood vessels over 5 days for use on their cardiovascular in vitro testing systems including Biopta's first instrument, the PM-1, which provides real-time information on the vascular effects of drugs in living tissues.

According to Dr Karen Macdonald of Biopta, the next stage is to repeat the trials with human vessels; "We are extremely encouraged by these results. Being able to maintain the viability of human blood vessels for longer would obviously enable us to extend the power of our in vitro studies to provide data on potency and efficacy or detect adverse effects in human tissue much earlier in the development process; accelerating development, reducing the risk of late stage failures and adding value to preclinical drug compounds."

Alex Watson, Chief Executive Officer, Abcellute Ltd said: "The results from Biopta are the latest of a series of external evaluations conducted by leading pharmaceutical companies, contract research organisations and academic institutes in Europe, the USA and Japan. Whilst the majority has concentrated on hepatocyte preservation, Biopta's findings also lead us to believe the company's technology might also have beneficial advantages in surgical management, such as post-organ transplantation blood vessel repair. Therefore an approved project with a leading London Hospital focusing on this area will now be implemented within a few weeks."

Abcellute

Founded in 2001 and based on the work of Dr Peter Evans and Dr Nathan Griffiths, Abcellute is a product led company which exploits a patent protected cell stabilising platform technology which enables the non-frozen preservation and transport of live organ-derived cells without the loss of viability or function. The Abcellute product is currently being sold to pharmaceutical companies in Europe for pre-clinical drug testing and the company is actively expanding these sales to Asia and the USA. In the long-term, the company plans to develop the preservation technology to provide products for cell-based therapeutics.

Biopta

Biopta is a unique in vitro pharmacology company with two divisions. These divisions work synergistically delivering ex vivo human tissue research services and automated in vitro pharmacology instruments to the pharmaceutical industry and research groups worldwide.

Biopta's human tissue research services are utilised by global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to improve the predictability and efficiency of their drug development. These services provide fully GLP in vitro pharmacology screening in ethically donated human tissues. These ex vivo tissue assays are used to provide either proof of concept in man or detect potential human adverse effects much earlier in the development process. These highly predictive assays are seen to bridge the gap between cell based screening and whole animal in vivo studies.

In addition Biopta's instrument division has designed and developed a novel platform technology for physiology/pharmacology research. Their first instrument, PM-1 is designed for isolated tissue pharmacology and has recently been launched.

http://www.biopta.com