Sistemic and RoosterBio Inc Announce Broad Collaboration Agreement
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Sistemic Ltd. and RoosterBio Inc. have announced that they have entered into a commercial collaboration agreement and signed a memorandum of understanding whereby both companies will combine their technologies and work together towards advancing the field of mesenchymal stem/stromal cell (MSC) regenerative technology.
RoosterBio and Sistemic will collaborate on utilizing microRNA (miRNA)-based cell characterization workflows and technologies to build more precise and relevant characterization panels for hMSC products and in process cell banks.
The collaboration furthers the identification of microRNA (miRNA) biomarkers across a wide range of donors predictive of hMSC performance based on a matrix of biological functions and outcomes of interest. Both companies envisage offering their customers’ access to the each other's technology platforms to enhance the quality, performance, and therapeutic knowledge of MSC technology. The eventual goal of the collaboration will be to erase the functional variability that is inherent in today’s MSC products and drive the evolution of stem cells from a science to a robust technology.
Since the initial identification and characterization by Friedenstein and his colleagues, in 1974, the understanding of MSC biology, function and therapeutic applicability has gone a long way with hMSCs currently being the most commonly used stem cell type in clinical applications. To date, it has been shown that MSCs exist and can be isolated from almost every tissue, possess the ability to self-renew and differentiate into multiple lineages and exhibit immense therapeutic potential, with tissue regeneration, wound healing and immune system modulation capabilities as examples.
Nevertheless, MSCs are also rare, prone to senescence upon extended culture, exhibit variable potency and show wide donor to donor variability. Both RoosterBio and Sistemic recognize the significance of these challenges and are fully committed to developing solutions that will enable the full therapeutic potential and wide spread commercial use of MSC technology.
Dr Daria Olijnyk, Senior Scientist and Business Development Associate of Sistemic said “Sistemic as a leading provider of miRNA-based tools for cell characterization and quality control of cell therapy products has a significant interest in and a detailed understanding of the field of MSC characterization and is fully committed to utilizing its expertise to provide innovative solutions to accelerate and optimize the clinical translation and cost-effective use of MSCs. We are very excited to announce our collaborative partnership with RoosterBio. We believe that with both companies working towards a common goal and combining our complementary expertise we will accelerate the development of a range of well characterized, easily scalable and highly potent MSC products which can be pre-selected based on their intended application. Combining Sistemic’s informatics capabilities and extensive knowledge base on existing MSCs allows both companies to combine their strengths to understand and potentially overcome donor-to-donor variability which has been a significant industry challenge, up to this point in time.”
Jon Rowley of RoosterBio, said “Collaborating with Sistemic is an example of a true “1+1 = 3” scenario. Thorough characterization of hMSC products and cell banks is central to crating a stable, robust technology that can be simply and affordably deployed across a range of applications - from cell therapies to 3D bioprinting. RoosterBio’s rich library of MSC donors married with Sistemic’s miRNA characterization platform will provide both predictive biomarkers and critical quality attributes that will allow MSC technology to reach its full potential, sooner. This collaboration will not only advance the science of stem cells, but accelerate the clinical and commercial translation of this technology.”
The collaboration, while organic in nature, is also being driven by commercial interest and an, as yet, underserved market need. Both Sistemic and RoosterBio have respectively served their customers seeking greater MSC characterization, and will now do so with a unified effort. The collaboration will endeavour to accelerate the development and commercial potential of Regenerative Medicine products.
