【News】Capital and business alliance with Metcela Inc., a company that develops regenerative medicine using cardiac fibroblasts, etc.

CYBERDYNE Inc. (Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan; President & CEO: Yoshiyuki Sankai; from now on referred to as “the Company”) and Metcela Inc. (Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan; Co-founders, Co-CEOs: Takahiro Iwamiya, Kenichi Nogami, “Metcela”), a company engaged in the development of regenerative medical product using the patient’s own cell for a wide range of cardiac diseases of both children and adults, announced to form a capital and business alliance (CYBERRDYNE’s investment in Metcela). Furthermore, the Cybernics Excellence Japan Fund 1 Investment Limited Partnership (CEJ Fund), operated by the Company’s subsidiary, will also invest in Metcela.

Metcela is a clinical development stage startup that aims to provide new fibroblast and stem cell-based therapies for chronic diseases that are inadequately responding to existing treatments. Since its establishment in 2016, Metcela has been engaged in research and development of its own drug discovery seeds. An investigator-initiated clinical trial is ongoing for of MTC001, a combination product of autologous cardiac fibroblast and a novel catheter delivery system targeting chronic heart failure patients.
Through this alliance, the Company will support Metcela’s research and development of its own drug seeds and significant expansion of Metcela’s manufacturing process development system, utilizing the “Cybernics Medical Innovation Base-A” that is being prepared in Tonomachi King Skyfront, and together they will create a new therapeutic tool for cardiac diseases.

(Comment by CEO Sankai)
Heart disease is the world’s leading cause of death and the number of patients is on the rise. We are trying to pioneer the development of a new business field for cardiac diseases by combining our vital sensing technology for prevention, early detection, and management of cardiac diseases and Metcela’s technology for treatment of heart failure through regenerative medicine using cardiac fibroblast cells. We are also looking forward to working with the medical and biotech ventures that will gather at our Cybernics Medical Innovation Base, which was built on the King Sky Front facing Haneda Airport. We look forward to working together to realize a “healthy future society” in which everyone can participate in society while maintaining a high level of health.

■ Website of Metcela： https://www.metcela.com/en/category/news/