Developing a new cell therapy for regenerating damaged hearts
In April, EATRIS had the pleasure of meeting its partners from HEAL Project in person for the first time at the Medical School Hannover (MHH) in Hannover, Germany.
HEAL- HLA-homozygous iPSC-cardiomyocytE Aggregate manufacturing technologies for allogenic cell therapy to the heart – is a new EU-funded project which involves ten partners from across Europe and Israel, with more than € 6 million, of which MHH is the coordinating institution.
The international research team led by Dr. Robert Zweigerdt and Prof. Dr. Ulrich Martin from MHH (Germany) includes the following partners:
- Medical School Hannover (Germany),
- Catalent Düsseldorf GmbH (Germany),
- Universitair Medisch Centrum Utrecht (Netherlands),
- Paracelsus Medizinische Privatuniversitat (Austria),
- the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel),
- Biological Industries Ltd. (Israel),
- European Infrastructure for Translational Medicine (Europe),
- InnoSER (Belgium),
- Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf (Germany),
- the University of Oxford (United Kingdom).
This highly interdisciplinary network of academic and industrial scientists is composed of stem cell biologists, bioengineers, cardio-vascular clinicians, veterinarians, ethicists, experts in GMP-regulations and other; together the partners aim at developing a new cell therapy for regenerating damaged hearts. One goal of the network is establishing new tools and expertise for accelerating the development of advanced human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-based therapies.
The project also aims to overcome scientific, regulatory and in particular safety hurdles, necessary to initiate a first-in-man (FIM) clinical trial for the therapeutic administration of allogeneic, human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-homozygous iPSC-cardiomyocyte aggregates, for improving the function of damaged hearts. EATRIS joins this project to lead the regulatory aspects of the project in addition to supporting HTA analysis and IP analysis work towards translating this new and innovative cell therapy to the clinic to treat heart failure patients that need it.
On the image below: partner institution representatives meeting in Hannover, Germany.
