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.