【News】Investment on “Cyfuse” , a venture with innovative regenerative medical technology ~ Providing new medical development by combination of HAL and regenerative medicines~

CYBERDYNE Inc. (“the Company”) today announced to have invested to an innovative regenerative medical technology venture, Cyfuse Biomedical K.K. (“Cyfuse”). The Company  participated in 1.4 billion yen Series B funding, along with other 11 investors, including venture capital funds and corporate investors.

 Cyfuse is a venture company that has a unique and innovative bio 3D printing technology (*1) using a fine needle array to skewer aggregates, which are called “spheroids”, and automatically creating a 3D cellular structure.

The Company will develop and contribute innovative and highly effective regenerative medicines for especially serious spinal cord injured patients with a combination of Robot Suit HAL using leading edge Cybernics technology (*2) and neural regeneration medicine by Cyfuse 3D tissue engineering to realize “No heavy nursing care world”.

 (*1) Cyfuse technology overview 

This technology uses a fine needle array to skewer cellular aggregates (0.5mm diameter), which are then stacked three dimensionally. Once the cellular aggregates are fused together, the needles are removed, resulting in elastic tissue based on the original cells and the collagen within. The Regenova bio 3D printer can automatically create a 3D cellular structure by inputting 3D data and cellular aggregate material. The resulting cellular structure spends several days or weeks maturing in a customized bioreactor, and comes to express its target strength and function. This technology can be used with various cell types, and is able to produce thicker and more elastic tissue than was conventionally possible, so it is expected to bring breakthroughs in drug discovery research and regenerative medicine in a wide range of therapeutic areas.
See more information on its website: http://www.cyfusebio.com/en/news.html?2015

(*2)  Center for Cybernics Research in Tsukuba University
http://www.first.ccr.tsukuba.ac.jp/english/research/

The company’s co-research partner CCR: Center for Cybernics Research in Tsukuba University, in which Principal investigator is Dr.Sankai, has been promoting research on regenerative medicine in brain-nerve system field. A research paper shows that the scaffolding of regenerating nerve boosts its motion function recovery in spinal cord injury rat case.
Along with advancing research on mesenchymal stem cell and autologous stem cell transplantation, further research on this regenerative medical technology field is highly expected as a part of Cybernics related field

 「A 3D nanofibrous hydrogel and collagen sponge scaffold promotes locomotor functional recovery, spinal repair, and neuronal regeneration after complete transection of the spinal cord in adult rats」
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-605X/10/1/015008/

「Basic research on regeneration of central nerve 」
http://www.first.ccr.tsukuba.ac.jp/research/theme/ccr9.html

「Olfactory mucosa transplantation in chronic spinal cord injury」
http://www.first.ccr.tsukuba.ac.jp/research/theme/ccr4.html