STEMCELL Technologies signs Exclusive License Agreement with Cincinnati Children’s for Stem Cell-derived Organoid Technology

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

STEMCELL Technologies Inc. has signed an exclusive license agreement with Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center to commercialize its fundamental technology for generating gastrointestinal organoids from pluripotent stem cells (PSCs). This agreement grants STEMCELL a license to novel methods for generating of organoid models and to develop cell culture media and tools that would enable scientists to create organoids from PSCs in their own laboratories.

Organoids are three-dimensional structures, or small clusters of cells representing ‘mini-organs’, which are grown in a dish. Organoids more closely mimic the complex structure and physiology of whole organs than standard two-dimensional cell culture models. Generating organoids from PSCs allows for an inexhaustible source of tissue, and opens this field to researchers who may not have access to primary tissues from patient biopsies or other sources.

The technology licensed from Cincinnati Children’s describes methods for generating gastrointestinal organoids, including intestinal and stomach, from human PSCs. These discoveries were developed in the laboratory of Dr. James Wells, Director of the Pluripotent Stem Cell Center at Cincinnati Children’s, and are further described in a series of Nature publications (J.R. Spence et al. 2011 and K.W. McCracken et al. 2014). 

Commenting on the agreement, Dr. Wells said, “There is a tremendous opportunity to use these new organoid models for advancing studies in human development, as well as for applying them in many powerful applications such as disease modeling, drug screening, and for developing therapeutics. I am pleased to partner with STEMCELL given their outstanding reputation for bringing quality research tools to the market.” 

STEMCELL has previously announced key partnerships with pioneering leaders in the organoid research field. Recently, the company signed an exclusive license with the Hubrecht Organoid Technology Foundation (The HUB) for patented tissue-derived organoid technology generated from the laboratory of Dr. Hans Clevers. Additionally, STEMCELL has exclusively partnered with the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (IMBA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences to develop cerebral organoids, or ‘mini-brains’, as described by Drs. Jürgen Knoblich and Madeline Lancaster.  

Dr. Allen Eaves, President and CEO of STEMCELL, commented that “This license with Cincinnati Children’s will enable STEMCELL Technologies to further expand upon our growing portfolio of products supporting organoid studies, including the recently released IntestiCult™ Organoid Growth Medium. STEMCELL Technologies is pleased to be the leading organoid company.  We are developing world-class organoid expertise, which we will leverage to deliver important, cutting edge research tools to the scientific community.”

About STEMCELL Technologies

As Scientists Helping Scientists, STEMCELL Technologies Inc. is committed to providing high-quality cell culture media, cell isolation products and accessory reagents for life science research. Driven by science and a passion for quality, STEMCELL Technologies provides over 2500 products to more than 90 countries worldwide. STEMCELL Technologies’ specialty cell culture reagents, instruments and tools are designed to support science along the basic to translational research continuum. To learn more, visit www.stemcell.com.