Plasticell, the biotechnology company developing regenerative drugs using high throughput stem cell technologies, has announced that patents protecting its proprietary cell culture technology, Combinatorial Cell Culture™ (CombiCult™), have been granted by the European Patent Office, Australian Patent Office and Intellectual Property Office of Singapore.

The granted patents cover high throughput and combinatorial methods of carrying out cell culture and exemplify use of the techniques to differentiate stem cells. ‘These patents provide broad coverage for Plasticell’s key technology and are significant milestones in the company’s development,’ said Dr Yen Choo, founder and CEO of Plasticell and inventor of the methods, adding ‘their issuance in multiple regions indicates the strength of Plasticell’s intellectual property and indeed patent applications in further territories including the USA, Canada and Japan are progressing satisfactorily.’

Combinatorial Cell CultureTM forms the basis of the company’s CombiCult™ system for high throughput screening of stem cell differentiation protocols. CombiCult™allows researchers to rapidly identify novel protocols which are highly efficient and/or cost-effective, and free of undesirable media components such as serum or growth factors.

Plasticell forms collaborations with industry partners to use CombiCult™ in the production of rare cell types for research or therapy applications. The company leverages the technology internally to produce assays for the discovery of small molecule regenerative drugs using a further proprietary technology, CombiScreen™.