Officials at Cytonome say the company assisted Japanese pharmaceutical firm Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma in producing enough human stem cells to proceed with a clinical trial of a new treatment aimed at curing Parkinson’s Disease.

Cytonome has developed microfluidic cell sorting and cell handling technologies and produces the GigaSort® GMP cell sorting platform, a parallel microfluidic cell sorter designed to process the large volumes required of cellular therapeutics.

Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma has reached a milestone to provide manufactured iPS cell-derived dopaminergic progenitor cells to Kyoto University Hospital for an investigator-initiated clinical study by Kyoto University and the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CIRA) to evaluate the safety and efficacy of iPSC-derived dopaminergic progenitors in the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease.

Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma increases the quantity of neurons through cell culture expansion. Not all cells produced through this method are suitable for therapeutic treatment, so they must be separated from suitable cells using the GigaSort® platform. After separation, suitable cells are implanted into the brain of a Parkinson’s patient (cell replacement therapy).

“This technique is very unique and plays one of the important roles in our manufacturing activities,” says Toru Kimura, representative director, executive vice president and CSO, Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma.

“We believe that this ground-breaking trial, if successful, has the potential to help many patients and families around the world that are effected by Parkinson’s disease, and we feel privileged to play a part in collaboration with Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma,” adds John Sharpe, Cytonome COO.

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