The version of Ficoll-Paque being developed by GE Healthcare and Saneron will specifically process stem cells from umbilical cord blood
GE Healthcare and Saneron have announced an R and D agreement to optimise GE Healthcare's Ficoll-Paque for the isolation of stem cells from umbilical cord blood.
This cell population contains stem cells with the potential to be used to treat more than 80 malignant, genetic and acquired diseases, such as leukemia, lymphoma, sickle cell anemia, thalassemia and immunodeficiency.
"Umbilical cord blood is playing an increasingly important role in the use of cell therapy in the successful treatment of human disease," said Nigel Darby, vice president of research and development, protein separations at GE Healthcare.
"Saneron and GE Healthcare are working together to provide a solution for a sterile density medium manufactured under GMP conditions to meet the growing need for processing umbilical cord blood so that it may be used in cell therapy".
Ficoll-Paque, a sterile density medium, has been used for 30 years to isolate high yields of mononuclear cells from peripheral blood and bone marrow.
However, the cell composition in umbilical cord blood, being significantly different from peripheral blood and bone marrow, demands different separation characteristics.
The version of Ficoll-Paque being developed by GE Healthcare and Saneron will specifically process stem cells from umbilical cord blood.
The new Ficoll-Paque will be manufactured under GMP standards.
"Saneron has developed a proprietary processing technique for the isolation of a heterogeneous population of cells from umbilical cord blood that has shown promising results in preclinical studies of stroke, myocardial infarction, spinal cord injury, and ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease).
"The cell separation media from GE Healthcare already provides exceptional gradient separation of cells, and the new version of Ficoll-Paque will be extremely valuable to Saneron in the completion of proof of principle studies prior to the initiation of future clinical trials," said Cyndy Davis Sanberg, vice president of research, Saneron.
"This represents an important milestone in Saneron's cord blood stem cell processing".
The new Ficoll-Paque is being developed at GE's Global Research Center in Niskayuna, NY, and tested at Saneron's facilities at the University of South Florida's research park.
GE Healthcare will commercialise the final product.
GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies that it says are shaping a new age of patient care.
GE Healthcare's expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring and life support systems, disease research, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies is helping physicians detect disease earlier and tailor personalised treatments for their patients.
GE Healthcare offers a broad range of products and services that are improving productivity in healthcare and enhancing patient care by enabling healthcare providers to better diagnose and treat cancer, heart disease, neurological diseases, and other conditions.
Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a $15 billion unit of General Electric Company.
Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 43,000 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries.
Saneron is a biotechnology R and D company, focused on neurological and cardiac cell therapy for the early intervention and treatment of several devastating or deadly diseases, which lack adequate treatment options.
Saneron, a University of South Florida spin-out company, is located at the Tampa Bay Technology Incubator.
An affiliate of Cryo-Cell International, Saneron is committed to providing readily available, non-controversial stem cells for cellular therapies and has patented and patent-pending technology relating to its platform technology of umbilical cord blood and Sertoli cells.
