New collaboration to support start-up companies in regenerative medicine space

A new collaboration has been forged by Phase Holographic Imaging with the RegeneratOR Test Bed, a new regenerative medicine venture in North Carolina, by offering its technology to support start-up companies in the regenerative medicine space.

Regenerative Medicine. Image Credit: metamorworks/Shutterstock.com

This collaboration will help expedite the expansion of these start-ups and scale-up companies by offering a novel technology that ensures label-free, non-destructive live-cell imaging.

Regenerative medicine and cell-based therapies promise to cure common but severe diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson’s, and several cancer forms. Cell analysis methods that allow cell-based treatments to be consistently manufactured on a large scale are a keystone in making regenerative medicine available to the general public.”

Peter Egelberg, Founder and CEO, Phase Holographic Imaging

“We are therefore excited to make our cell imaging and analysis technology available to ReMDO, in their mission to advance large-scale biomanufacturing,” added Egelberg.

The RegeneratOR Test Bed will act as a driver of economic development, enabling the growth of start-ups and scale-up mid-to-large-sized companies to be accelerated with novel, emerging technologies by providing access to sophisticated biomanufacturing equipment, industry expertise, talent, and training programs to promote innovative prototyping and commercial product development.

The RegeneratOR Test Bed has been announced by two key driving forces of the regenerative medicine field: the RegenMed Development Organization (ReMDO), which is a non-profit foundation headquartered in Winston-Salem, NC, and dedicated to promoting the field nationwide; and the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), which is the world’s largest regenerative medicine institute.

The recently held special launch event was attended by leaders from science, business, health care, and government, as well as from collaborating companies.

According to Joshua Hunsberger, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer of ReMDO, Phase Holographic Imaging’s technology will be the most sought after for start-up companies in the Test Bed.

This technology offers start-up companies in our region the ability to monitor their live cells using label free non-invasive methods that can offer up over 15 different assays to assess cellular function. Some of these programmable assays already developed include cell viability, cell proliferation, cell migration, and wound healing!”

Joshua Hunsberger, Chief Technology Officer, RegenMed Development Organization

Anthony Atala, MD, director of WFIRM, praised Phase Holographic Imaging for believing in the vision: “We believe this region has a lot to offer in terms of helping these companies be successful, and, at the same time, we can advance the regenerative medicine field nationally.”

The RegeneratOR Test Bed is one of three key areas that work through ReMDO’s RegeneratOR, a first of its kind in regenerative medicine to advance biomanufacturing scale-up and automation to render technologies more economical and accelerate the translation to clinical practice. Given below are the other two focus areas:

• ReMDO’s RegeneratOR Business Incubator—This supports innovation right from research to commercialization for regenerative medicine start-ups and growth companies by offering space and support, such as financial planning, market potential validation, budgeting, benefits analysis, and all-inclusive business plans.
• ReMDO’s RegeneratOR Workforce Development—This is a resource that links an educational ecosystem of colleges, technical schools, and university programs with biomanufacturing staff, research leaders, and engineers to train highly skilled biomanufacturing researchers and technicians.