Histogen, a San Diego biotech company developing a hair loss treatment from stem cells, has established a joint venture for cancer therapy.
Privately held Histogen has created the venture, Histogen Oncology, in partnership with the medical device company Wylde LLC. Wylde contributed $2.5 million, said Gail Naughton, the company's chief executive.
The company's technology grows young skin cells called fibroblasts under simulated embryonic conditions, including low oxygen levels. The company says these conditions cause the cells to become embryonic-like, making proteins and substances called growth factors characteristic of young tissue. Histogen uses these substances in its various products.
Histogen Oncology uses certain of these substances that enable cancer cells to undergo programmed cell death, or apoptosis. These substances turn on a gene that controls apoptosis, which naturally occurs in damaged cells, Naughton said.
Since the cancer cells are genetically abnormal, they begin to self-destruct when apoptosis is triggered. Normal cells are not affected, because the apoptosis mechanism is already turned on, she said. The loss of this mechanism is a hallmark of cancer.
Histogen Oncology intends intends to apply within 18 months to start clinical trials in Stage 4 advanced metastatic pancreatic cancer, Naughton said. This cancer is a good target because it has a high mortality rate, so better therapies are urgently needed, she said.
There's an average 6.7 percent survival rate for patients over a five-year period after diagnosis with pancreatic cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute.
"We're hoping that we're going to see an increase in the person's life, without any toxic side effects," Naughton said.
The substances will be given either intravenously or injected into the abdominal cavity.
Histogen first focused on hair loss because people will pay for it out-of-pocket, eliminating the need for insurance reimbursement. As the technology is validated, Histogen's plan is to extend into therapeutic areas. It has established a number of such ventures.
This past March, Histogen said its Histogen Aesthetics subsidiary had acquired the CellCeuticals Biomedical Skin Treatments line of skin care products. Histogen said it is adding its regenerative medicine technology to improve skin at the cellular level.
And in March of last year, Histogen created another joint venture, PUR Biologics, to develop orthopedic therapies.
PUR Biologics is preparing to start two clinical studies in the orthopedics field next year.
"That worked so well we said, why don't we use the same model for bringing the oncology work forward?" Naughton said. "This is a model that is working for orthopedics, and will give us the money to get into the clinic in the relatively near term."