NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – GE Healthcare and San Diego-based Cytori jointly announced today that GE will commercialize Cytori's StemSource technology in North America for the stem cell banking and research markets.
The StemSource technology automates and processes stem and regenerative cells found in adipose tissue and cryopreserves them directly for research purposes. The term of the pact is 18 months and begins in the current quarter. The agreement does not include Cytori's Celution System for cosmetic and reconstructive surgery, which is currently under Food and Drug Admin istration review.
The North American agreement follows a similar alliance signed between the firms in January covering 10 European countries. That deal includes both the StemSource and Celution technologies.
"Our US sales team, like that in Europe, is seeing growing customer demand for adipose-related cell technology, both from our existing stem cell banking customers as well as our research customers involved in the development of cell therapies," Konstantin Fiedler, general manager of cell technologies at GE Healthcare, said in a statement.