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news.MultiCell Technologies has received a new Small Business Innovation Research award to create proprietary "BioFactories" that express a serine protease inhibitor recently implicated as a treatment for sepsis.
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The goal of this project is to genetically engineer inter-alpha-inhibitor proteins (I(alpha)Ip) that have been found valuable as a treatment for sepsis in preclinical studies. Presently the only way of getting these proteins is to purify them from human plasma.
Sepsis is the leading cause of death in the non-cardiac intensive care unit and the tenth leading cause of death overall in the US. Sepsis is a systematic and overwhelming response to infection. Once triggered, an uncontrolled cascade of coagulation, impaired fibrinolysis, and inflammation occur, causing further disease progression. This results in damage to the lungs, liver, kidney and cardiovascular system, leading to multiple organ failure, which is usually followed by death.
Presently the best treatment for severe sepsis is Eli Lilly’s Xigris, however this product only reduces the absolute risk of death by 6%. The annual cost to treat patients with severe sepsis in US hospitals is nearly $17 billion.
MultiCell’s president, Dr Stephen Chang, states, “Results from preclinical studies suggest that I(alpha)Ip therapy is a promising new approach to treat severe sepsis. Since our immortalized hepatocytes naturally produce this complex protease inhibitor we reason that our proprietary lines will be ideal to produce recombinant I(alpha)Ip.”