Vancouver, B.C.-based biotech company Aspect Biosystems inked a partnership worth potentially more than $2.6 billion with Danish biopharma giant Novo Nordisk to develop “bioprinted” tissue therapeutics.
The deal comes with $75 million in up-front payments, research funding and a convertible note investment, with potential for $650 million in milestone payments for each of four potential products in diabetes or obesity.
Aspect’s proprietary tissue engineering technology “prints” human cells enmeshed with biological scaffolds to generate complex three-dimensional living tissue. The tech combines bioprinting technology with therapeutic cells, biomaterials and computational design.
The aim is to replace, repair or supplement biological functions in the body to treat conditions such as type 1 diabetes, which results from the destruction of cells in the pancreas.
The collaboration will combine Aspect’s bioprinting platform with Novo Nordisk’s technology for generating stem cells and its expertise at cell therapy development and manufacturing.
The partnership “reinforces our strategy to create bioprinted tissue therapeutics through partnerships with global industry leaders while also advancing our internal therapeutic pipeline,” said Aspect CEO Tamer Mohamed in a statement.
Mohamed co-founded the University of British Columbia spinout in 2013 as chief technology officer and became CEO three years later. The company previously raised $50 million from venture firms and the Canadian government, and its current head count is more than 80 employees.
The new collaboration will initially focus on developing tissue therapeutics to help people with diabetes maintain normal blood glucose levels. The therapeutics will be designed with cells that are “allogeneic,” meaning they are not derived from the patient and have the potential to be produced with large-scale manufacturing.
Aspect’s microfluidics tech is able to generate tissue that has distinct components and functionality within it. The company describes its tech in the video below.
