VistaGen Therapeutics, Inc. (VSTA), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, has secured exclusive worldwide commercial rights to three patent-pending stem cell technologies from University Health Network (UHN), Canada’s largest research hospital.

The newly licensed technologies were discovered and developed by distinguished UHN researcher, Dr. Gordon Keller, director of UHN’s McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine (McEwen Centre), one of the world’s leading centres for stem cell and regenerative medicine research, and relate to the development of stem cells into heart, liver and cartilage cells for multiple potential commercial applications, including drug rescue and regenerative therapies for heart disease, liver disease and osteoarthritis.

VistaGen now holds a total of five licenses to stem cell technologies developed in collaboration with UHN, the McEwen Centre and Dr. Keller.

The agreement covers methods and compositions for generating epicardium cells from pluripotent stem cells, an achievement that no other medical research lab in the world has yet been able to accomplish. Epicardium cells are essential for proper development of the heart, and play an important role in cardiac recovery during disease.

It also covers methods for generating hepatocytes (a major cell-type in the liver) and cholangiocytes (cells which line the bile ducts) from pluripotent stem cells, which offer new and improved approaches for evaluating the liver safety of drug candidates, as well as cell therapy opportunities for liver failure and/or diseases involving the bile system of the liver, including cystic fibrosis (CF) liver disease, the third most frequent cause of death in CF.

It includes methods and compositions for generating chondrocyte lineage cells which produce either articular (cartilage) or growth plate (bone-forming) chondrocytes important in development of future regenerative therapies to treat bone related injuries and osteoarthritis.

“We are pleased to have the opportunity to further expand our relationship with the world renowned UHN and McEwen Centre. These latest licensing agreements will be instrumental to our core drug rescue programs and lay a solid foundation to explore collaborative opportunities to advance Dr. Keller’s ground-breaking discoveries beyond the lab and towards the clinic,” stated Shawn Singh, chief executive officer of VistaGen.