The new medium – Xuri MSC – is intended for the expansion of human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSC), which are used by researchers to makecartilage, bone and fat cells. hMSC cells are being tested in a number of therapeutic applications, from lupus and stroke to brain cancer and Crohn’s disease.
Phil Vanek, General Manager for Cell Therapy Technologies, GE Healthcare Life Sciences, told BioPharma-Reporter.com one of the biggest advantages the new medium has over others used to culture hMSC is that it is free of animal products.
“Traditionally cell culture is carried out in media that needs to be supplemented with animal serum. There are challenges around batch to batch variability of serum as well as supply chain and logistical challenges, which means validation and risk assessment is required for each batch.
“Our serum-free and xeno-free medium removes this need for validation requirement, maintaining consistent cultivation results between batches.”
Process efficiency
Vanek also claimed the new medium can benefit manufacturers from a production efficiency and facility space utilisation perspective.
He explaining that: “it can expand cells to the high numbers required for therapeutic doses without the high variability of conventional serum-based medium systems and can achieve higher cell yield compared to serum facilitated cultures.
“The medium also enables the growth of MSCs in a very compact way on surfaces which accounts for the higher cell yield. This becomes far more important for bioreactor facilitated scale up where getting the most cells on the smallest volume possible is a crucial step in industrialization of process development.”
The Launch of the new medium comes just a few weeks after GE completed its acquisition of Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Hyclone culture media business.