Orgenesis

About:

Orgenesis focuses on a novel therapeutic treatment for diabetes by correcting malfunctioning organs with new functional tissues.

Website: http://orgenesis.com

Top Investors: Boundary Holding, Metalmark Capital, Governing Dynamics Venture Capital, Wallonia Regional Government

Description:

Orgenesis is a development stage company with a novel therapeutic approach in the treatment of diabetes by correcting malfunctioning organs with new functional tissues created from the patient’s own existing organs. Orgenesis employs a molecular and cellular approach directed at converting liver cells into functional insulin-producing cells as a treatment for diabetes. This new therapeutic approach is called Autologous Insulin Producing (AIP) cell transplantation. Beta cell replacement is one of the most promising approaches for treatment of Insulin Dependent Diabetes Mellitus (IDDM). Currently, pancreas islet transplantation is the only approved cell replacement technology and it's the best available treatment for diabetics. However, it's impractical because of a shortage of donor tissue and rejection rate by the patient' immune system. Orgenesis believes that converting the diabetic patients own tissue to insulin producing cells will overcome the problem of donor shortage. Moreover, since the diabetic patient serves as his/her own donor, there is no risk of transplant rejection. Orgenesis has manifested promising results in in-vitro and in-vivo studies using human liver tissues. Based on this significant discovery and these findings, Orgenesis has designed an efficient and clear work-plan to initiate clinical testing in the next few months allowing the company to launch phase I clinical trials following FDA guidelines followed by the launch of Phase II clinical trials within a year.