Ah well this last one is tricky. Austrianova posted about a stem cell partner in Aug. 2017. I have found one document which I think I shouldn't have found. It concerns Tithon Biotech Inc. So it either is a big secret or the deal is off. Let your fantasy run free.
By using Austrianova’s well tested cell encapsulation technology along with its experience in the area of encapsulation, in combination with Tithon’s unique and proprietary immortalized adipose-derived mesenchyme stem cell product and Tithon’s expertise and clinical experience in the stem cell industry, an off-the-shelf encapsulated stem cell product is in the works(“MSC-Encap(s)”).
To our knowledge, SCS-based microcapsule systems have been mainly employed for the encapsulation of estab- lished cell lines. However, the use of cell lines may be a concern for the regulatory bodies when designing clinical trials, in particular, immortalized cells that are able to form tumors in vivo. For this reason, our interest focused on the encapsulation of primary human cells such as MSCs, which are of interest in many clinical applications. In the present work, we have also investigated the behavior of other pri- mary cell types such as human fibroblasts, and two cell lines including hMSC-TERT cells and HEK293 cells, for com- parative purposes. Our results showed that the viability of primary cells such as hMSCs and hFibroblasts encapsulated in this device was limited compared to the performance of established cell lines such as hMSC-TERT and HEK293 cells. Similarly, hMSC had a reduced metabolic activity over the 14 days of culture compared to hMSC-TERT cells. This observation suggests that primary cells may find some elements of microcapsule environment detrimental whereas their im- mortalized counterpart is able to survive in these condi- tions. Nevertheless, we found that microcapsule material was not cytotoxic to primary hMSCs by either direct or indi- rect contact. Intriguingly, we found that hMSC-TERT cells had exten- sive proliferation by day 14, and cells occupied about 50% of the microcapsule inner membrane. Uncontrolled prolifer- ation from immortalized cells could be worrisome from a safety point of view.
Anyway.
2017 - in service of PMCB examining cell properties to select best cell for the homogeneous cell line testing alternatives to fetal calf serum since now forbidden testing alternative mediums since ours currently unavailable transferring know-how to Eurofins testing R&D cell bank for shelf life Sources: CC and PRs, sorry, don't have video recordings or access to their database