PARIS ¿ Celogos SA, a biotechnology start-up founded in June to develop cell therapies using adult stem cells, is applying a patented technology called Rational Cell Design (RCD) to obtain high-quality cell cultures for achieving specific therapeutic objectives.

It was founded by two researchers from the Institut Pasteur in Paris, Christian Pinset and Didier Montarras, the former heads of its cellular development laboratory. Celogos is housed in the institute¿s biotechnology business incubator, BioTop, and is the seventh company to have been spawned by the institute.

Pinset, Celogos¿ managing director, is currently the only full-time staff member (Montarras is acting as scientific adviser while continuing to work for the institute). The company¿s capital was put up by the founders and other private investors, as well as Pasteur, which currently has a 30 percent shareholding. Pinset now is seeking to raise seed capital of EUR1.5 million (US$1.3 million) from venture capital funds, which would enable him to recruit eight to 10 people. He told BioWorld International that he hoped to close the funding round before the end of this year and had already preselected the people he would be hiring.

According to Celogos, cell therapies using adult stem cells are the ¿way forward for the treatment of various diseases,¿ but they have one limitation, namely the problem of obtaining quality cell cultures. Pinset said Celogos¿ core technology, which it licensed from Pasteur, overcomes that problem.

Thanks to a combination of cellular technology and bioinformatics, which Pinset described as ¿an assemblage of existing technologies,¿ RCD enables cultures of high-quality human stem cells to be obtained. In particular, it makes it possible to identify the main elements required for cultivating cells that, when reimplanted in the organism, perform specific functions, such as reconstituting tissues. Pointing out that cell therapy with adult cell transplants already had been used successfully to repair the skin of severe burn victims and was beginning to make it possible to repair broken bones and torn ligaments, Pinset said that Celogos was focusing on highly specific therapies, such as rebuilding the tiny muscles associated with urinary incontinence.

Another application was to use the cells for creating a kind of cell factory within an organism designed to produce the proteins it lacks. Pinset explained that this approach might be useful for treating a variety of conditions, including anemia, renal insufficiency and conditions requiring the administration of human growth factor, such as dwarfism. Finally, Celogos said adult stem cells have significant potential as tools for pharmacological screening.

To obtain the raw material it requires, Celogos is concentrating its attention on adult stem cells from the skeletal muscle. Because they are easy to get at, genetically stable and have strong potential for differentiation and growth, the company said they are excellent tools for cell therapy. They can either be directly transplanted for repairing muscles, or genetically modified and then implanted into the body for the long-term delivery of therapeutic proteins.

Pinset explained that Celogos¿ medium-term strategy was to produce therapeutic tools for the use of drug development companies, although it could embark on the development of full-fledged therapies at a later stage. He expects to have a product ready within a year and could have it on the market in two to three years.

In the meantime, the company could generate revenue by entering research collaborations, although it is too early to start negotiating such deals, Pinset said. But it is involved in several research and development partnerships with units of the Pasteur Institute (such as the molecular embryology laboratory and the quantitative imaging analysis laboratory), as well as with the Ginithon, another research center, which manufactures the viruses that Celogos requires.