ReNeuron presenting new data on Friday

Cell-based therapeutics developer ReNeuron Group announced on Friday that it would be presenting new data relating to the characterisation and scale-up of its CTX cell-derived exosome therapy candidates at a leading scientific conference in London, also on Friday.

The AIM-traded firm explained that, in a poster presentation, ReNeuron researchers and their academic collaborators at the Department of Biochemical Engineering, University College London, would address the challenges of purifying CTX-derived exosomes at scale whilst preserving their potential therapeutic attributes to ensure consistency of future manufacture.

New strategies were being presented to address the upstream cell culture processes needed to generate the exosomes and the downstream purification methods that could be applied to remove protein and DNA-based impurities from the exosomes at commercially relevant scale.

The new methods yielded a threefold increase in particle protein purity and a more than fivefold increase in particle DNA purity compared with previous purification processes.

In a further poster presentation, research teams at ReNeuron and at the UK's Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult would address the challenge of characterising ReNeuron's CTX cell-derived exosomes to ensure consistency and control during manufacture.

The company said the studies undertaken demonstrated a “robust approach” to optimising and qualifying assays for micro-RNA (miRNA) targets found in the exosomes.

A potential advantage of exosomes when utilised as a carrier for the delivery of therapeutic miRNAs in gene therapy was the avoidance of issues typically encountered by RNA-based drugs, such as stability in vivo and tissue targeting, ReNeuron’s board explained.

The application of robust characterisation and purification methods to ReNeuron's exosome populations would support the future development of the company's exosome-based therapeutic candidates across multiple potential disease indications - the initial disease target being cancer.

“The data being presented at the ISCT 2017 conference represent key advances in the development of ReNeuron's CTX-derived exosome therapeutic programme, both as a potential new nanomedicine targeting cancer and as a potential delivery system for gene therapy treatments,” said ReNeuron’s head of research Randolph Corteling.

“We look forward to presenting further data from this programme in the months ahead,” Dr Corteling added.