Reinnervate Ltd partners with Oncotest and SBH Sciences on introductory services for screening novel anti-cancer drugs using 3D tumour cell culture

Sedgefield, UK. November 2013 – 3D cell culture company Reinnervate Ltd today announced partnerships with two oncology-focussed CRO’s to offer 3D tumour cell screening services. The CROs, Oncotest GmbH (Freiburg, Germany) and SBH Sciences (Natick, MA, USA) will both offer a new service for clients wishing to try out cancer 3D cell culture screening for the first time or who wish to evaluate new tumour types in their models.

The introductory service ranges in price from $1,499 to $2,499 and has the following experimental outline:

• Client picks two cancer cell lines from the available panel (over 200 tumour cell lines are available)
• Client provides up to 2 test compounds or specifies two commercially available drugs to be used
•  CROs include one positive control cell line and one positive control compound
•  All 3 compounds are tested on the specified 3D tumour cells cultured in Alvetex® 96 3D cell culture plates
•  A dose response experiment with ten concentrations in duplicates will be performed using the Promega Cell Titer-Glo® assay
• CRO provides a comprehensive data report with IC50 values and a follow-up telephone conference
• Comparison of 2D and 3D tumour cell responses can be provided (depending on service chosen)

‘These new introductory 3D tumour cell services will allow more scientists to explore the differences in drug response between 2D and 3D cultured tumour cells’ said Richard Rowling, Commercial Director at Reinnervate Ltd. ‘These services have been priced at a level which should be affordable for most groups that have not yet had the time to explore the improved biological relevance offered by 3D cell culture systems’ he added.

Torsten Giesemann, Department Head at Oncotest commented, ‘We have been using Alvetex® 96 3D cell culture plates for some time now and are keen to help as many clients as possible explore the potential benefits of testing new oncology drugs on 3D tumour cells cultured in a 3D format. There is an increasing body of scientific data showing that tumour cells cultured as monolayers are a poor proxy for the in vivo situation.’

SBH Sciences CEO, Raphael Nir said, ‘We have a panel of over 200 different tumour cell lines and look forward to helping our clients evaluate 3D tumour cell screening and compare the differences in drug response between 2D and 3D cell culture systems using Alvetex® technology’.

For further information please contact info-emea@reprocell.com

About Reinnervate Ltd

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 develops, manufactures and sells products for 3D cell culture. During 2013 Reinnervate has launched several new formats including 24 and 96 well plates and developed specialist applications for scientists working in the fields of cancer research, cell migration/invasion and stem cell culture/expansion.

Reinnervate was founded in 2002 based on the pioneering research of Professor Stefan Przyborski and his lab at Durham University, UK, and is funded by NorthStar Equity Investors (NSEI), management and private investors.

About Alvetex® Scaffold

Alvetex® Scaffold is a unique polystyrene material that provides a robust and inert scaffold for cells to grow and form complex 3D structures in vitro, mimicking the normal growth and formation of tissues in the body. Reinnervate has extensively tested and validated Alvetex®Scaffold 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.

Alvetex®Scaffold has been launched globally in several formats: a 12-well culture plate, 24-well culture plate, 96 well plate, 6-well and 12-well inserts. These formats enable scientists to construct different 3D cell culture models and assays. These include screening of novel drugs / drug combinations on 3D culture and co-culture models, co-culture to study cell-cell or cell-matrix interactions, the growth of cells at the air-liquid interface and the long-term culture of cells.

Alvetex® Scaffold was voted as one of the top 100 innovative products of 2011 at the R&D 100 awards and was named among the winners of The Scientist magazine’s “Top 10 Life Science Innovations of 2010.”

About Alvetex® Strata

Alvetex® Strata is a unique polystyrene material that provides a robust and inert scaffold support for cells, tissues and embryoid bodies. These surface-grown cells and tissue slices are supported and viability maintained for longer periods than currently possible with alternative technologies. Reinnervate has extensively tested and validated Alvetex® Strata with intact tissue slices, embryoid bodies and variety of cell lines.

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.