In major news today, Cellect Biomed Ltd. and Accellta announced that they have signed an agreement to evaluate Cellect’s apoptotic induction based technology in combination with Accellta’s stem cell culturing technologies. Cellect Biomed Ltd. is headquartered in Tel Aviv, while Accellta is headquartered in Haifa, Israel.
Accellta is a fascinating stem cell company that can quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively grow massive quantities of clinical grade cells in xeno-free, feeder-free culture, by utilizing methods of growing the cells in suspension. Specifically, the company can increase a cell population from 1 million cells to 10 billion cells in two weeks with a bi-weekly change of media and an overall cost of about $3,000, by using bioreactors to do it in a very efficient way. Using traditional adherent culture, this would take about 70 liters of medium and an overall cost of $150,000, because it would take 40 to 50 days to do the expansion. [Read more…]