Ischemic diseases such as myocardial infarction, cerebral infarction, and critical limb ischemia are caused by blood vascular occlusion, followed by the tissue necrosis. The general treatment for these diseases is to reperfuse the vascular occlusion before the severe necrosis, while it is still highly challenging to regenerate large necrotic area once formed. In order to regenerate necrotic tissue, it is first necessary to recirculate blood (angiogenesis) and deliver nutrients and oxygen again, but currently no treatment method has been established to directly promotes angiogenesis.
It has been reported that Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs) affect to vascular endothelial cells to promote angiogenesis, and clinical trials using mesenchymal stem cells as regenerative medicine products for ischemic diseases have been conducted worldwide. Unfortunately, however, the MSC alone have not been shown to have sufficient therapeutic outcomes on the target ischemic diseases, and many clinical trials have ended in failure.
One of our pipelines, minoxidil hAP cells exhibit higher efficacy to enhance more angiogenesis than the MSC only in a cell-based assay, which could provide break through toward the unmet medical needs to restore the ischemic areas (https://orchard-bio.jp/en-business/en-development/). Orchard Bio Inc. is looking for a partner to jointly develop minoxidil hAP cells to provide this therapy to the ischemic patients.
