Firms will develop three iPSC products for use in research and bioproduction.
Life Technologies and Cellular Dynamics International (CDI) have agreed to commercialize a set of three new products optimized to consistently develop and grow human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) for both research and bioproduction. The partnership marries CDI’s background in human iPSC development with Life Technologies’ expertise in stem cell research tool manufacturing and global distribution network.
Life Technologies’ commercialization of Essential 8 Medium, Vitronectin, and Episomal iPSC Reprogramming Vectors addresses several challenges associated with developing relevant cells for use in a wide range of studies, from basic and translational research to drug discovery efforts. To eliminate the variability introduced by a mouse cell feeder layer previously used during the culture of human iPSCs, researchers have adopted feeder-free media.
However, existing feeder-free culture media contain more than 20 interactive ingredients, many of which, such as bovine serum albumin and lipids, are highly uncharacterized and vary significantly from lot-to-lot. This leads to variability in iPSC growth and differentiation and impedes the progress of disease studies and potential clinical applications.
Essential 8 Medium, manufactured in a Life Technologies cGMP facility, overcomes this barrier. In addition, bovine serum albumin and other undesirable components have been removed from the media, thus reducing the number of ingredients to just eight well-characterized elements required to support efficient growth, eliminate variability, and enable large-scale production of human iPS cells.
