Exten Industries Inc., a San Diego biotechnology firm, announced last week that it will acquire Warwick-based MultiCell Associates Inc. for an undisclosed amount of cash and stock.
MultiCell will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Exten and will remain in Rhode Island, according to Exten Executive Vice President Greg Szabo. He said MultiCell might move its operations from Warwick to the former CytoTherapeutics research facility in Lincoln so the company can expand its operations and add to its nine-person staff.
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“Eventually (MultiCell) will become a traditional commercial business by adding not only more scientific personnel, but also technical and manufacturing employees and sales and marketing people,” Szabo said.
Exten is developing an artificial “liver-assistance” device — similar to a dialysis machine for kidney-failure patients — which would be used to sustain basic liver functions for patients awaiting liver transplants. Through a partnership, MultiCell already has been developing human cells to be used in Exten’s device. It will take over development of the device itself following the acquisition, which is expected to close by the end of May.
“Our expertise here in Warwick has been to develop the cells that go into the liver-assistance device, and now we’ll also be assuming responsibility for developing and improving the device,” said Dr. Ronald Faris, chief scientific officer for MultiCell and a cell biologist at Rhode Island Hospital. “I think it’s an excellent marriage of technologies.”
Faris, who will become president and chief scientific officer of MultiCell after the deal closes, said he expects the firm’s staff to grow by 50 percent this year — providing it has adequate space for the planned expansion.
The CytoTherapeutics property in Lincoln is an ideal location for MultiCell, Szabo said, because the facilities already have been certified by the Food and Drug Administration. But CytoTherapeutics — which changed its name to Stem Cells Inc. after relocating to California — still is leasing the space, although it has remained vacant for three years. Szabo plans to meet this month with officials from the state’s Slater Center for Biomedical Technology to discuss the possibility of taking over the property.
“We’re hoping we can nail down the details quickly, because it could take several months to get the facility ready,” Szabo said.
While improving its liver-support device is the primary motive behind the MultiCell acquisition, Exten eventually plans to use MultiCell’s technologies to branch into cell therapy, or the transplantation of healthy human cells into diseased livers. MultiCell’s engineered liver cells also could be used by pharmaceutical and chemical companies for drug screening and toxicology testing, which Szabo called a “prime opportunity.”
“We think MultiCell gives us a complete liver program,” he said.
Exten plans to begin pre-clinical testing of its liver device soon, although the product likely will not be approved by the FDA for at least five years.
