Likarda, LLC

Animal Regenerative Medicine & Contract Research Organization

Through the use of an innovative platform technology, Likarda streamlines the engineering of multi-cell type, uniform, organotypic 3D cell clusters for a variety of applications. This includes drug screening and regenerative medicine.

Primary screening for new diabetes drugs is traditionally completed on flat monolayers of culture beta cells (the insulin-producing cells of the body), leading to poor prediction of how drugs will work in the body. Attempts to use native tissues for screening have fallen short due to inherent variations in the tissue. Likarda solves this by engineering 3D islet clusters, Kanslets, that provide superior performance.

The engineered cell clusters are also used for transplants into companion animals as a way to cure diabetes through the use of a surgical procedure as routine as spaying/neutering a cat or dog. Likarda has successfully cured rat diabetes by transplanting Kanslet cell clusters into diabetic rats.

With a grant from a large pharmaceutical company for secondary compound screening already in hand, Likarda is poised to expand its presence in the pharmaceutical and animal health industries. We are focusing our attention on three market applications: (1) secondary drug screening to test compounds targeted to diabetes markets; (2) primary compound screening with organotypic species-specific screens; and (3) transplantation to cure diabetes in companion animals without the need for long-term immunosuppression of the animal.