HepaTx, Namocell, and Takara Bio USA complete second phase of collaboration on single cell analysis for cell therapy to treat late-stage liver diseases

HepaTx Corporation, Namocell Inc., and Takara Bio USA, Inc. (TBUSA) announced successful completion of the second phase of their collaboration on single cell analysis of hepatocyte-like cells (iHeps) differentiated from adipose tissue-derived stromal cells (ASCs) using Namocell’s Single Cell Dispensers and Takara Bio’s SMART-seq kits to characterize HepaTx’s novel cell therapies for liver disease.  The results of the second phase demonstrated a 95% success rate in single cell isolation and library construction.  Single cell RNA-seq showed distinct clusters of cells at various differentiation stages.  The high reproducibility of results within sample groups will support development of novel cell therapies and validate production processes.

“Namocell’s single cell isolation platforms and Takara Bio’s single cell analysis products enabled us to take a deep look at the biology underlying our cell therapy platform and make key advances in development.  Namocell’s gentle cell dispensing technology enabled us to obtain reliable and consistent phenotype information on our cells.  Takara Bio’s reagents and sequencing technology yielded extremely consistent sample quality and very high information content.  The results from this collaboration will be valuable for our development programs,” said Dr. Eric Schuur, CEO of HepaTx.

“We are excited to see the second phase results, and glad that our Single Cell Dispensers enabled HepaTx to advance their innovative stem cell-based therapy that could revolutionize the treatment of late-stage liver diseases by replacing liver transplants.  Namocell’s Single Cell Dispensers simplify plate-based single cell RNA-seq, which not only produces more genes per cell, but also gives researchers the flexibility to decide how many samples to analyze and how many cells to be included in each sample, while keeping the analysis cost-efficient.  This is ideal when you need to analyze a large amount of different samples but only a few cells per sample,” said Dr. Junyu Lin, CEO of Namocell.

“We are excited to be working with Namocell and HepaTx and contribute to the development of an innovative clinical solution.  Leveraging our SMART-seq technology with Namocell’s Single Cell Dispenser is an ideal match for performing plate based single cell RNA-seq, enabling researchers to perform full length sequence analysis on single cells providing a deeper view into gene expression and cellular differentiation,” said Dr. Suvarna Gandlur, Associate Director of Next Generation Sequencing at Takara Bio USA.