Onyi Irrechukwu's Contact Details

Onyi Irrechukwu's Company Details

Hepregen

Medford, MA, US • 20 - 49 Employees
BioTech/Drugs

The mission of Hepregen Corporation is to transform safety assessment and drug development in order to significantly impact patients' lives. The company is focused on advancing and commercializing its microliver platform, HepatoPac, into the drug-development pipeline of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. We have utilized microtechnology tools adapted from the semiconductor industry to both optimize and miniaturize in multi-well formats an in vitro model of the human liver called HepatoPac, a micro-patterned co-culture (MPCC).Specifically, human hepatocytes are organized into colonies of prescribed, optimized dimensions using microfabrication tools and subsequently surrounded by supportive, non- parenchymal cells.Hepatocytes in HepatoPac retain their in vivo-like morphology, express liver genes, metabolize com- pounds using active Phase I and Phase II drug metabolism enzymes, secrete diverse liver‐specific products, and display functional bile canaliculi for up to 4 weeks in vitro Hepregen's technology offers the potential to be a more predictive platform for toxicity screening and for drug discovery. It combines sophisticated biological and engineering technologies to create an in vitro liver model which closely mimics many key functions and features of the in vivo human liver. HepatoPac fits into existing work-flows and is amenable to High Content Screening, allowing it to become an integral part of preclinical analysis for DMPK and Safety. In addition, HepatoPac can also be utilized for: efficacy assessment of drugs affecting the liver, biomarker identification, creation of diseased liver models, and utilization with stem cells. Currently, Hepregen is partnered with over 20 pharmaceutical companies using the HepatoPac technology, In 2008, Battelle Ventures spun out Hepregen Corporation from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and led the company's Series A financing.