Reinnervate launches Alvetex®, a breakthrough product for enabling routine 3D cell culture

Sedgefield, UK. 22nd November 2010. Reinnervate, an innovative life sciences company driving the adoption of routine 3D cell culture, is very pleased to announce today the first commercial launch of Alvetex®, its breakthrough 3D cell culture technology.

Alvetex is a unique material that provides a robust and inert scaffold for cells to grow and form complex 3D cell structures in the laboratory, mimicking the normal growth and formation of tissues in the body.

Reinnervate has extensively tested and validated Alvetex with a large number of cell types, including liver, skin, cancer and stem cells, all of which have important applications in basic research into cell development, disease modelling and drug safety screening.

The first Alvetex format to be launched is a 12 well plate (see picture) designed as an off-the-shelf, sterile-packed and ready-to-use product and will be available via international life science product distributors. Alvetex, seen as a white membrane at the bottom of each well, has a highly porous architecture that is specifically tailored for 3D cell culture and is compatible with a large number of well-known cellular and molecular assay techniques.

The Company plans over the next 12-18 months to introduce Alvetex products in a range of standard multi-well plates including those suitable for high-throughput drug screening, and unique well inserts that enable long-term 3D cell culture over several weeks. Alvetex is designed and developed with the needs of cell biologists in mind and will allow researchers in academia and the pharmaceutical and related industries to construct different 3D cell culture models to meet their specific research needs.

Ashley Cooper, CEO of Reinnervate, said: “There is a real need for a technology that can allow the routine generation of genuine 3D cell cultures in the laboratory. This need is being reflected in the considerable level of interest being expressed by international life sciences products companies to distribute Alvetex products. The first commercial launch of this innovate product is a great achievement for all involved in its development at Reinnervate and many congratulations are deserved.”

Professor Stefan Przyborski, Reinnervate’s Chief Scientific Officer and founder, said: “We are extremely proud to launch Alvetex following the intense development efforts of our innovative and highly dedicated team. We believe we have created a truly game-changing technology for which there is huge demand, and that will enable rapid and important advances in our understanding of cell behaviour and ultimately lead to novel therapeutic approaches.”

Alvetex is manufactured by reinnervate at its state of the art facility at NETPark, near Sedgefield, UK, and assembled for distribution and sale by Classic Industries Europe at its GMP production facility in nearby Barnard Castle.

For further information, please contact

For Reinnervate (now part of REPROCELL Europe
info-emea@reprocell.com

Mark Swallow / Malcolm Robertson
Citigate Dewe Rogerson
+44 (0)207 638 9571
mark.swallow@citigatedr.co.uk

About Reinnervate

Reinnervate is an innovative life sciences company dedicated to making routine 3D cell culture a reality for researchers in academia and in the pharmaceutical and related industries.

Reinnervate’s core technology is Alvetex®, a unique and proprietary scaffold that enables routine 3D cell culture in the laboratory. Alvetex provides a nanoscale environment that supports genuine homogeneous 3D cell growth. Cells grown using alvetex form complex 3D tissue cultures, which more closely mimic normal in vivo cell growth and the formation of tissues in the body. The use of Alvetex-derived 3D cell cultures can provide researchers with greater insight into how cells behave in the body in response to external factors (such as drug candidates) than is currently possible with existing 2D or other emerging 3D cell culture technologies.

Reinnervate has generated significant data, which have been published extensively in peer-reviewed publications, exemplifying the use of Alvetex in a large number of cell types and applications. Alvetex is being developed for commercialisation in a range of formats and is due to be launched in 2010.

Reinnervate is also using its cell biology expertise to generate a library of synthetic small molecules that mediate stem cell differentiation in vitro. The first of these small molecules, ec23®, is commercially available and offers the potential for robust and reproducible differentiation of neural cell types.

Reinnervate was founded in 2002 based on the pioneering research of Professor Stefan Przyborski and his lab at Durham University, UK.

Note: Reinnervate Ltd (County Durham, England) was acquired by REPROCELL Inc (Yokohama, Japan) in August 2014. Biopta Ltd (Glasgow, Scotland) was acquired by REPROCELL in November 2015. REPROCELL Europe Ltd was established by merging Reinnervate and Biopta in June 2016.