Promethera Biosciences partners with Shibuya Corp

Belgian cell therapy developer Promethera Biosciences SA (Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium) Shibuya Corporation (Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan) have inked a strategic collaboration to establish a high-throughput, commercial-scale and clinical-grade cell therapy and regenerative medicine manufacturing platform.  Promethera aims to optimise and expand manufacturing capabilities for its pipeline of liver-derived cell therapies to treat Non-Alcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH), acute-on-chronic liver-failure (ACLF) etc. Shibuya aims at expanding into the European market in the manufacturing of regenerative medicine products. The companies agreed to establish a manufacturing facility in Gosselies, Belgium. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
„The joint production platform will significantly increase our and our partners’ manufacturing capabilities in the cell therapy space reinforcing our claim to offer treatment to potentially thousands of patients from one donated liver,” said Dr. John Tchelingerian, CEO of Promethera Biosciences.

“Research, clinical studies and market supply in the emerging sector of cell therapy and regenerative medicine require large scale cell cultivation at a reasonable cost while adhering to highest quality and safety standards of various types of stem cells,“ said Hidetoshi Shibuya, Managing Director Shibuya Corporation and CEO Shibuya Hoppmann Corporation.

Shibuya has manufactured and installed a variety of aseptic systems and equipment for hospitals and universities which includes cell culture isolators, robotic cell culture isolators and 3D bio printers. All systems are suited for very high level disinfection processes and operate without direct human intervention. This allows Shibuya to achieve unprecedented control over cell processing and culture conditions to ensure highest product quality and safety standards.