Orgenesis Inc., a developer, manufacturer and service provider of advanced cell therapies, today announced that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with Digilab Inc. to develop a live cell printing process and systems designed to automate the production of three-dimensional live cellular structures and tissues.  Under the Agreement, Orgenesis will have the exclusive rights to co-develop the process and systems required for its therapeutic collaboration programs and to utilize, market and distribute the new cell printer systems and related products.

The systems will incorporate Digilab’s proprietary synQUAD liquid dispensing technology, offering both on-the-fly and drop-by-drop, non-contact, cell printing, while maintaining the viability of even the most delicate cells. This extremely flexible technology enables full control over critical dispensing parameters such as height of dispense and dispensing speed, which allows printing of both viscous solutions and fragile cells. The Digilab 3D printer is the premier 3D bio printer on the market today with a 95% or greater live cell viability.

The industrial process capability to be co-developed by Orgenesis and Digilab is designed to provide closed-loop systems and solutions for culturing and printing a variety of cells with the initial focus on liver and liver derived cells for autologous clinical applications for point-of-care processing services.

Vered Caplan, CEO of Orgenesis, stated, “We are excited to partner with Digilab to co-develop and market this next generation cell printer capability, which will have the ability to not only dispense cells, but for the first time, assemble living cells within a three-dimensional matrix.  Digilab’s technology, which includes a valve-free fluid path, greatly reduces cell damage. Our goal is to utilize this technology that has the potential to transform the cell therapeutics service industry by automating the process for production of complex cell structures and full organs.  In our preliminary trials with Digilab, we were able to print liver cells from our cell bank in the CellJet, proving the potential feasibility of this technology.  This technology holds potential for very broad uses, including stem cell applications, customized cell arrays, cell-drug interaction studies, cell culturing, and tissue engineering.  This latest collaboration further illustrates Orgenesis’ commitment to our partners to develop cutting-edge, next generation technologies enabling cell and gene therapy applications.”

John C. Moore, president and COO of Digilab, commented, “Orgenesis is an ideal partner given their extensive and complementary intellectual property, regional partnership network and broad commercialization capabilities.  We look forward to working closely with Orgenesis to potentially accelerate the use of our state-of-the-art technology for development and processing services related to advanced cell and gene therapy products, with the joint goal of reducing manufacturing costs and bringing new, lifesaving technologies to market.”