STEMCELL Technologies and Hubrecht Organoid Technology to Partner on Non-Oncology Organoid Drug Screening Services

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--STEMCELL Technologies and Hubrecht Organoid Technology (HUB) have announced that they have signed an agreement for the use of tissue-derived organoids—including lung, intestinal, and liver organoids—for use in preclinical toxicology screening and non-cancer drug development services to be offered by the Contract Assay Services division of STEMCELL. These services will help researchers and organizations working on drug development incorporate organoids into their preclinical testing programs and bring new therapeutics to market faster and more cost-effectively.

HUB Organoids™ are experimental models derived from the adult stem cells present in epithelial tissues. Expansion and differentiation of these stem cells gives rise to functional “mini-organs in a dish”. HUB Organoids™ represent a patient-specific way of assessing the efficacy and toxicity of drugs during preclinical screening. By closely mimicking human biology, HUB Organoids™ can be used to more accurately predict patient response to treatment than traditionally used systems. As such, they have the potential to drastically lower the costs and failure rates currently associated with bringing new treatments to market. Under the existing agreement, STEMCELL develops and supplies a wide range of cell culture kits that efficiently expand and maintain the different stem cell-derived organoids that will be used for many of these screening programs.

This new agreement complements HUB and STEMCELL’s existing partnership, where STEMCELL is the exclusive provider of cell culture media for all HUB Organoids™, by allowing STEMCELL to perform preclinical toxicology screening as well as non-cancer drug testing and validation services. "We are extremely pleased to be able to expand our partnership with HUB to include these new services," remarked Dr. Allen Eaves, STEMCELL’s Founder, President, and CEO. "As Scientists Helping Scientists, our goal is to make these incredible technologies more accessible to researchers, whether they are growing organoids in their own labs or partnering with service providers to advance their science."

“At HUB we are on a mission to bridge the gap between the lab and the clinic and bring patients-specific models into the lab,” said Dr. Robert Vries, HUB CEO. “Carefully selecting our strategic partners is key to expanding global access to HUB Organoid Technology and, ultimately, to improving patient care. STEMCELL has already demonstrated thought leadership in the Organoid Technology field; therefore, we believe that expanding the scope of our partnership to include services will benefit the research and drug development community worldwide.”

About STEMCELL Technologies

As Scientists Helping Scientists, STEMCELL Technologies is committed to providing high-quality cell culture media, cell isolation products, accessory reagents and services for life science research. Driven by science and a passion for quality, STEMCELL Technologies offers over 2500 products designed to support the basic to translational research continuum. Visit www.stemcell.com to learn more.

About HUB

Hubrecht Organoid Technology (HUB) was founded by the Hubrecht Institute, the University Medical Center Utrecht, and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) to refine organoid development and foster organoid adoption globally. HUB Organoid Technology represents a paradigm-shift that bridges the gap between the lab and the clinic and effectively brings “patients in the lab” for drug discovery and development, preclinical patient stratification, predictive biomarker discovery, personalized medicine, clinical trials, regenerative medicine, and companion diagnostics applications. Learn more by visiting www.huborganoids.nl