With a market capitalization of more than $350 million, Ocata Therapeutics is a major player in the stem cell space. Based in Marlborough, Massachusetts, it is a clinical stage biotech company that develops a range of regenerative therapies for the treatment of ophthalmologic conditions. By 2010, Ocata Therapeutics (at the time called “Advanced Cell Therapy”) began experimenting with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). This was only four years after research and experimentation using mouse cells at Kyoto University first generated iPSCs in 2006, and only three years after a series of follow-up experiments done at Kyoto University successfully transformed human adult cells into iPSCs in 2007.
Due to concerns with the use of iPSCs for therapeutic applications, the company shifted its approach to using human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) for clinical trial purposes, as well as other pluripotent cell types.
In major news released on December 28, 2015, Ocata Therapeutics stated in a company press release that “early research was published in the journal PLOS One (online, December 21, 2015) by Ocata and its collaborators at the University of Miami, UCSD, and Stanford University…presenting a method for generating scalable amounts of human embryonic stem cell derived corneal endothelial cells (hESC-CEC).”
This is a promising advance, because it moves us closer toward the development of regenerative, cell-based approach to vision restoration.
“Disease and injury to the cornea are leading causes of blindness worldwide,” said Robert Lanza, M.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Ocata and senior author of the paper. “Unfortunately, many people are left visually impaired or blind due to lack of available donor corneas. We have developed a simple, two-step method for generating amounts of hESC-CECs, in-vitro, which does not rely on donor corneas.” Dr. Lanza added, “The ability to manufacture these cells from a single, replenishable stem cell source may provide a potential solution to the worldwide shortage of transplantable corneal tissue. As we near the completion of our acquisition by Astellas, I am excited about the possibility of moving this early research into pre-clinical studies in the future.”
To learn more, view the full press release here.