Roche enters laminin agreement with BioLamina
To develop new cell culture systems for various applications
Swiss pharmaceuticals manufacturer Roche has entered a research and development agreement with BioLamina, based in Stockholm, Sweden, to jointly develop new cell culture systems for various applications, including stem cell research.
The collaboration will focus on assessing laminin-based in-vitro cell culture matrices offering highly physiological microenvironments for living cells. Under the terms of the agreement Roche will provide R&D funding and scientific expertise to BioLamina. Financial details were not disclosed.
Laminins are proteins located in the extracellular matrix providing the stability essential for cell growth and behaviour. They are the only protein group in this environment that have a tissue-specific distribution, including expression of specific laminins during embryonic development. This makes them an interesting target for new biologically relevant cell culturing techniques.
‘Our aim is to develop laminin-based culture systems that provide biologically relevant, standardized environments,’ said Ruedi Stoffel, Head of Biochemical Reagents & Custom Biotech at Roche. ‘We are looking forward to this collaboration to build on the revolutionary cell cultivation techniques developed by our colleagues at the Karolinska Institute and BioLamina.’
Kristian Tryggvason, CEO of BioLamina, added: ‘By resolving many of the technical obstacles currently blocking the road to modern cell therapy, we expect this collaboration to accelerate the development of innovative cell culturing solutions that possibly can enable cell therapy.’
BioLamina commercialises innovations based on recombinant laminins developed by Professor Karl Tryggvason at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. Laminins provide solutions to issues of repeatability and undefined and complex culture systems, making cell biological research and development of clinical applications faster, easier and more reliable.
