We have strategically targeted the acquisition of rights to technologies that are complementary to and synergistic with our mesenchymal lineage adult stem cell (MLC) platform. The aim is to maintain what we see as our technology leadership position in the cellular medicines space, while simultaneously expanding our targeted disease applications and managing the life-cycle of our current lead programs.
Our technologies and additional product candidates include:
- Additional types of MLCs, including dental pulp stem cells and periodontal stem cells, which hold promise in regenerative applications for neurological networks and in dental applications.
- Cell surface modification of MLCs using ex vivo fucosylation to improve homing characteristics to sites of inflammation.
- Cell payloading technology, which allows us to load our MLCs and other cell types with molecules or nucleotides that can either enhance the natural function of our cells (e.g. increase persistence or homing and engraftment) or be delivered directly to sites of inflammation and tissue damage by our MLCs.
- Protein technologies, which are focused primarily on proteins naturally produced by our MLCs, that can be developed independently or in combination with our MLCs. For example, we are developing a product candidate based on a molecule known as stromal cell derived factor 1, or SDF-1, that has shown various tissue regeneration capabilities in preclinical studies. We have a proprietary variant of SDF-1 that has been engineered to be resistant to enzymatic cleavage and that has a longer half-life in vivo compared to the native molecule.
- Gene targeting technologies that allow us to target various helpful or harmful genes related to a particular disease indication.