Transparent Inc. announced that it has developed a more advanced medium for Cell-able, a human hepatocyte array kit that has the potential to reduce drug development costs and time-to-market for pharmaceutical companies. Transparent first introduced Cell-able in the United States a year ago.
The new medium enables frozen human primary hepatocytes to maintain metabolite activity at a significantly higher level. Using the previous version of Cell-able’s medium, CYP3A enzyme activity in a platable lot of frozen human primary hepatocytes demonstrated that the ratio in cell suspension dropped to 1-2% on the seventh day. However, the new medium has managed to improve the ratio to 10-40%. UGT enzyme activity has also shown the same type of improvement. These factors indicate that Cell-able can create an in vivo environment.
The Cell-able array enables the formation, from human liver cells, of 3D structures that mimic liver tissue and can sustain functions for four weeks or more. The product allows researchers to evaluate multiple liver functions using one test plate.
“We have received many inquiries about Cell-able since launching it last year in the U.S., and orders are coming in,” said Transparent President Takeshi Ikeya. “We anticipate a big demand from pharmaceutical companies and research organizations for Cell-able because it enables faster, more reliable analysis of liver functions, which is crucial in new drug development.”
