QTS and Hepregen Execute Co-Development and Co-Marketing Agreement

Qualyst Transporter Solutions, LLC and Hepregen Corporation have announced, at the 19th North American Meeting of the International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics ("ISSX"), the execution of a co-development and co-marketing agreement between the companies. This agreement supports the co-development of HepatoPac® B-CLEAR® assay kits, which can be used for predictive and mechanistic hepatic transporter analysis.

The kits will be marketed by both companies and will contain human or animal hepatocytes (liver cells) in Hepregen's proprietary micro-patterned, co-culture microtiter tissue culture plates. The co-cultures will be optimized for transporter analysis using Qualyst's proprietary hepatobiliary methodology and unique capability of measuring intracellular concentrations.

"Drug transport, hepatotoxicity, and hepatic induction studies require the highest quality hepatocytes, since these cells must be fully-functioning in order to achieve physiologic intracellular concentrations," said Christopher Black, Qualyst's chief executive officer.

Black continued, "Our emerging partnership provides customers with an additional path to access B-CLEAR®, enhancing Qualyst's ability to maximize the value of this patented and proven technology and take advantage of the proven capabilities of the HepatoPac® product system."

"This important product development and marketing partnership represents the realization of a mutually conceived goal that was set more than a year ago," commented Dr. Vincent Zurawski, Hepregen's president and chief executive, adding, "The products resulting from the partnership will enable our customers the unique ability to enhance their understanding of drug candidate interaction with hepatic transporters using best-in-class products that have been designed to outperform all competing platforms."