Lincoln-based MultiCell Technologies Inc., a supplier of immortalized non-tumorigenic human hepatocytes – or liver cells – as pharmaceutical candidate optimization tools, announced Monday that its licensee, XenoTech LLC, executed a three-year use and propagation agreement with pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb. Financial terms were not disclosed, a Business Wire press release said.
The contract, the first from a major U.S. pharmaceutical company, allows Bristol-Myers Squibb to grow and use MultiCell’s immortalized Fa2N-4 hepatocytes for internal testing purposes. MultiCell’s patented immortalized non-tumorigenic human hepatocytes are considered valuable screening tools for pharmaceutical lead candidate optimization.
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“This agreement represents an important validation of the value of our non-tumorigenic human hepatocytes in the drug development process,” said Dr. Stephen Chang, MultiCell’s president. “Pharmaceutical companies have been buying our cells under evaluation licenses to test the usefulness of our cell lines for their particular drug discovery applications. We expect that as use of MultiCell’s functional immortalized hepatocytes in testing drug candidates increases, we will help the industry lower drug development costs and ultimately help protect the public from the possible dangers of recalled drugs.”
“Signing the first major U.S. contract with one of the top U.S. pharmaceutical corporations is an encouraging step toward routine industry use of the Fa2N-4 cells for drug development purposes,” said Dr. Andrew Parkinson, XenoTech’s CEO.
MultiCell’s non-tumorigenic functional hepatic (liver) cells and cell lines are useful to pharmaceutical companies for induction studies and toxicity screening for drug discovery because hepatocytes express drug-metabolizing enzymes which bio-transform drugs or substances ingested into the body, helping indicate possible reactions to the human liver.
Drug failures or FDA rejections due to hepatotoxicity and/or drug-drug interactions now cost the pharmaceutical industry about $2 billion each year. Estimated costs to develop and test a new medicine are $900 million. MultiCell’s cellular product expertise also enables production of biologics for diagnostic and therapeutic applications, production of liver-derived therapeutic proteins and human liver stem cells.
The company’s majority-owned Xenogenics subsidiary owns all rights to the patented Sybiol synthetic bio-liver device. MultiCell’s immortalized hepatocytes operate optimally with any working bio-liver device. The company believes that such devices could extend the lives of patients waiting for liver transplants, and be a treatment option for chronic liver disease. MultiCell also has patents on adult liver stem cells.
