Date: Jun 16, 2016 Source: BioFlorida.com (
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Transgenex Nanobiotech Inc. Teams with Funakoshi Co. LTD for Distribution of their FiSSTM-based Tumoroid Culture Products in Japan.
Transgenex Nanobiotech Inc. (TGN) has partnered with Funakoshi Co. LTD to begin the sale and distribution of TGN's Fiber-inspired Smart Scaffold (FiSSTM)-based Tumoroid culture products in Japan, which will include culture disc, plates for drug discovery, biomarker studies, drug efficacy studies and stem cell isolation using cancer cell line cultures, co-cultures, and biopsy cell cultures for research purposes.
The current unmet need in cancer research is for a simple, affordable, tumor culture platform that can recapitulate patient cancers. TGN's FiSS™ platform promotes growth of cancer cell clusters called "tumoroids," which closely mimic tumors that grow in patients. TGN's current products include various formats of their FiSSTM-based tumoroid culture platform for use basic research, drug discovery and clinical drug efficacy studies. A unique feature of tumoroid platform is that it does not require TGF-beta unlike other 3D spheroid cultures and the culturing is done in regular media, just like 2D cultures. FiSS™ gives researchers an inexpensive tool to grow tumors in a cell culture dish for use in drug screening and tumor characterization studies.
The 3D cell culture market,which includes tumor spheroids is estimated to grow at an annualized growth rate of 28% and is expected to capture nearly 35% of the global cell culture market netting in USD $11 billion by 2025 (source: Root Analysis). In keeping with this trend, the Japanese market for cell culture products is also rising. In order to meet this growing demand, Funakoshi Co. LTD offers three millions products for research use from worldwide suppliers to researchers all over Japan. Funakoshi News, a newsletter published by the company, is issued twice per month and introduces new products to Japanese customers. Thus, distribution through Funakoshi forms the best strategy for TGN to reach cancer researchers in Japan.
The FiSS™ platform enables end users to quickly achieve genuine tumor-like tumoroid culture with minimal optimization, minimal investment and minimal change to existing workflows. "Japan is at the forefront of 3D cell culture systems and our strategic partnership allows us to introduce our product to the Japanese researchers with maximum efficiency," said Dr. Shyam Mohapatra, the Chairman of Transgenex. "This venture will open up doors for the sale of the rest of our pipeline products like our FiSSTM-based 4D tumoroid culture system, which allows the growth of in vitro tumoroids in a perfused culture system, that is expected to tumoroids resemble tumors by >90%." TGN plans initially rely on distributors for all its sales and TGN's partnership with Funakoshi is the first step in that direction.
About Transgenex Nanobiotech Inc.
Transgenex Nanobiotech Inc. (TGN) is a privately held global nanotech-pharma research and development company located in Tampa, FL, USA. The company is a spin-out from University of South Florida (USF), with a strong patent position and has licensed these technologies from the USF. TGN has the production equipment and the capability for large-scale production of FiSSTM-based cell culture products. Additionally, TGN has obtained funding from the Florida Institute of Commercialization to commercialize these technologies.
About Funakoshi Co LTD.
Funakoshi Co., Ltd. is a leading distributor of life science reagents and scientific equipment in Japan. The corporate mission of Funakoshi Co. is to offer products based on leading-edge technologies from around the world to Japanese researchers to support and develop their research. Additional information is available on the Company's website at www.funakoshi.co.jp
Contact for Funakoshi Co., Ltd.:Technical Support Department (reagent@funakoshi.co.jp)
+81-3-5684-1620
Transgenex Contact:
Janni Mirosevich, PhD
Transgenex Nanobiotech Inc
Phone: 813-974-9649
Email: jmirosevich@transgenex.com
www.transgenex.com
