Cellcolabs has raised $8.7m from angel investors to expand production facilities and grow employee headcount.
The Sweden-based company manufactures specialised stem cells that can be used to develop cell therapy treatments for diseases associated with inflammation.
Investors included Fredrik Österberg and Jens von Bahr, cofounders of publicly-listed casino tech company Evolution AB.
The fresh capital raised is aimed at contributing to headcount growth by around 30% across R&D, process development, quality assurance and patient recruitment. Cellcolabs will also be using part of the fundraise to reduce its stem cell prices by investing in bringing down its R&D and large-scale production costs.
What problem is Cellcolabs solving?
Inflammation is an underlying cause of a range of illnesses including heart disease, depression, asthma and high blood pressure. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) can heal damaged tissue and regulate the body’s immune response to inflammation, making them prime candidates for new treatments targeting these diseases.
But these cells are expensive and difficult to produce, which can hold back research as well as lead to high prices for novel cell therapies that are unaffordable to many patients. Cellcolabs hopes to bring these prices down by producing MSCs in industrial quantities and reducing the cost for researchers.
Last year, CEO Mattias Bernow, said that “these advanced cell therapies have the potential to become for chronic diseases what antibiotics were for infectious diseases,” if the cells are made more accessible.
Scaling up
Cellcolabs produces these MSCs from the bone marrow of healthy donors in its Stockholm lab and then sells the cells to academic institutions as well as biotech companies working on new products and treatments. In the next three to four years, it says that it hopes to secure 30 of these strategic partnerships.
It plans to keep increasing its large-scale production capacity and cut the cost of these stem cells by 90% compared to its current price tags by 2030s. Cellcolabs says that its stem cells cost between 10-20% less than other providers that also offer high-quality MSCs.
In 2023, Bernow told Sifted that the company hopes to be able to produce 1-2k high-quality batches of cells a year with the help of 10-15 bone marrow donors.
The potential of MSCs
Cellcolabs is invested in potential uses for MSCs beyond novel treatments for inflammatory diseases.
Its subsidiary company, Cellcolabs Clinical, is supporting clinical trials based in the Bahamas which are testing the efficacy of the stem cells for preventing, rather than treating, cardiovascular diseases. There’s also a trial testing the use of the cells in treating musculoskeletal injuries like fractures and sprains.
These cells could also be useful to the longevity industry. Inflammation is a major contributor to ageing, and the anti-inflammatory properties of MSCs could play a part in preventing the damage that inflammation does to the human body and keep it healthier for longer.
All of this means the market for these specialised cells is likely to boom. A 2023 report estimated that the current global market value of MSCs in 2022 stood at $3.7bn — by 2031, it reckons that’ll almost double, to $7.2bn.
