Xcell Therapeutics launches exosome-specific media...80+ experts "excited" about it 

Xcell Therapeutics, a leading culture medium company in Korea, held a symposium to commemorate the launch of CellCor EXO CD, a dedicated medium that can effectively produce mesenchymal stem cell-derived exosomes.

The event was held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, and was attended by more than 80 domestic and international scholars and industry representatives in the field of exosomes.

Exosomes are 50~200nm (nanometer) vesicles secreted by cells, which are the mother cells. They similarly contain proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and peptides, and serve as messengers for intercellular signaling.

Exosomes can overcome cell therapy safety issues such as immune rejection and vascular occlusion while maintaining similar pharmacological effects to existing cell therapies. This is especially advantageous for storage and distribution. Exosomes are attracting attention as a next-generation drug delivery system because they can be loaded with drugs and delivered into cells.

The range of applications is endless. Not only stem cell-derived exosomes targeting intractable diseases, but also immune cell-derived exosomes loaded with anticancer drugs are being developed as targeted anticancer drugs.

The exosome therapeutics market is considered to be a blue ocean with no based therapeutics. Due to its high growth potential, it has been one of the most hotly contested areas in the bio industry.

According to market research firm DBMR Research, the global exosome market is expected to grow from $11.74 billion (KRW 14 trillion) in 2021 to $36.92 billion (KRW 38 trillion) by 2026, at a compound annual growth rate of about 21.9%.

"Regardless of the field, securing product homogeneity is a top priority in industrial production," said Dr. Lee in his welcome address to the symposium. "Xcell Therapeutics will strive to develop media with innovative modality reproducibility and homogeneity, as well as safety and affordability," he added.

In his congratulatory remarks, Mansoon Hwang, CEO of Korea Investment Partners, said, "Over the past 20 years of investment, I have realized that the development of basic technologies, including media, is crucial for the success of a new drug." "I hope that all the participants in the symposium will work together to develop the bio industry."

"Media containing bovine serum (FBS) and human platelets (Hpl) are controversial because they can have unpredictable effects on EVs," said the first speaker, Dr. Peter Frost from Pelo Biotech. "To overcome this, there is a need to develop optimized media for EV research."

"In our research, we have developed ciMSC-EVs (immortalized human mesenchymal stem cell-based extracellular vesicles) with therapeutic potential for various diseases such as graft-versus-host disease (GvHD), ischemic stroke, COVID-19, and sepsis," said Prof. Bernd Giebel from the University of Duisburg-Essen.

We are currently using a medium containing human platelet components (Hpl), but in order to mass produce MSC-EV-based therapeutics with uniform quality, we are looking for a medium that is GMP-compliant and supports both excellent proliferation and strong EV secretion by ciMSCs."

Dr. Hyoil Chung from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Yonsei University introduced a novel microfluidic chip that overcomes the shortcomings of existing exosome isolation methods such as ultracentrifugation. The microfluidic chip requires less time to isolate exosomes than conventional methods. It has the advantage of phenotypically isolating exosomes through microbeads of various sizes immobilized on the surface.

"Cell culture media is a basic requirement for maintaining cell survival and growth," said Dr. Lee Ju-yeon, head of research at Xcell Therapeutics. "The yield and quality of cell-derived exosomes can vary depending on the quality of the media used for culture," he said.

"The use of chemically formulated media that do not contain animal and human-derived exosomes is very important in terms of providing an ideal culture environment for exosome production."

"Our new exosome-specific medium is capable of extracting high-functioning, high-purity exosomes," said Dr. Yongjun Park, Head of Sales at Xcell Therapeutics. "It enables companies to obtain high-purity exosomes, which is a challenge for many companies."

The discussion, chaired by Dr. Yong Song Lee of POSTECH, discussed the future development direction of EV-based therapeutics including exosomes, as well as various technologies such as purity improvement and quantification methods.

"Xcell Therapeutics developed the world's first serum-free chemotactic medium for GMP-grade stem cells and is expanding its pipeline to include hair follicle cell-specific medium, exosome-specific medium, and NK-specific medium," said Lee. Our in-house cell-specific media development platform enables us to rapidly build our pipeline." 

Source: sj@news1.kr