British technology selected as part of a pan-European project aimed at delivering rheumatoid arthritis cell therapy treatment
Sistemic's technology, SistemQC, has been chosen to form a key part of the research and production process for a multinational collaborative project.
The project aims to bring the first stem cell therapy treatment product for rheumatoid arthritis, Cx611, through final research and clinical development.
Dubbed REGENER-AR, the project is led by TiGenix in Belgium and includes partners from Spain, France, the Netherlands.
SistemQC combines robust miRNA profiling with superior statistical analytics and multi-layered contextual analysis to generate a fingerprint of key miRNAs (kmiRs).
The system provides a succinct read out on the status of the cells, with the added benefit of being able to interpret the underlying biological effects associated with any change observed.
Additionally, the kmiR fingerprints can be adapted to a QPCR method for ease of integration into laboratory routine, and provide rapid testing.
They can be used as a cell phenotype characterisation tool in combination with a qualitative assessment of product cell composition, or to monitor product quality during scale-up and aid the selection of manufacturing process improvements.
This work is part of a larger collaborative effort led by TiGenix and funded by a €5.9m European Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) grant under the topic "regenerative medicine clinical trials" within the health theme.
