Evercyte and Boehringer Ingelheim to investigate EVs for NextGen therapies

Vienna, Austria: – Evercyte GmbH, the leading provider of immortalized human primary-like cells has started a collaboration with Big Pharma player Boehringer Ingelheim to explore potential to develop extracellular vesicles (EVs) as a novel delivery and therapeutic technology for key therapy areas.

EVs are cell-derived membranous structures released by most cell types into the circulation and represent an important way of intercellular communication. When taken up by recipient cells, they alter the behavior of these cells depending on their respective cargo. In mouse models, EVs secreted by stem cells have shown therapeutic potential in diseases like stroke, myocardial infarction or osteoarthritis.

Delivering therapeutic cargoes

EVs can further be engineered for the delivery of specific therapeutic cargoes, such as oligonucleotides, small molecules, proteins, or for specific targeting of defined tissues. The collaboration will address basic questions on how EVs travel to specific tissues to create new opportunities for the development of next generation therapy approaches.

Dr. Regina Grillari, CTO of Evercyte, commented: “Evercyte’s telomerized human cell lines have been in use as in vitro test systems in pharma and cosmetic industries as well as in academia for more than six years.”

Telomerized cell factories

“Our collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim will enable us to achieve a deeper understanding of EV biology using various telomerized cells as factories for EV production. This is aligned with Evercyte’s strategy to establish human production cell lines with primary cell-like characteristics and complements our efforts to develop rigorous quality control systems for generating and banking cells according to GCCP standards”, said Dr. Grillari.

“The data generated within this collaboration are an important first step into the direction of developing EV based therapeutics for patients,” she added.

About Evercyte

Evercyte GmbH, based in Vienna, manufactures a range of innovative cell-based products; telomerase (hTERT) immortalized or life span extended cells and differentiated cells from immortalized or normal stem cells.

Recently, Evercyte has become a key player in the development of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from human urine as a non-invasive source for generating cell material. The company also offers a range of cell-based assays, used in development of drug screening strategies and other applications. It also develops assays to individual specification to help customers reduce their time and spend on drug discovery and development.

Evercyte’s Pharmacocellomics^™ is also improving the predictability of substance efficiencies and side effects in the general population by systematically establishing and commercializing relevant cell type specific model systems from donors of different genetic backgrounds.

Founded in 2011, the Vienna-based company successfully offers tools and the know-how necessary for the establishment of standardized high-throughput target identification and drug screening strategies, for toxicity studies, or for efficacy testing from statistically relevant numbers of donors. In addition, Evercyte now also focuses on using telomerized cells as cell factories. Further information at www.evercyte.com