Scimitar Equity Blog

ISCO.OB’s stem cell therapeutic programs focused on protective, transparent corneas (CytoCor™) in the front of the eye and the light-sensitive retinal tissue (CytoRet™) in the back of the eye will be formalized into a new business unit, Cytovis™.

CytoCor is the brand name for ISCO.OB’s corneal tissue that can be derived from proprietary parthenogenetic stem cells or commonly used embryonic stem cells.

• R&D with partners Absorption Systems in the US, Sankara Nethralaya in India and Automation Partnership in the UK continues for the purpose of optimizing the tissue for transplantation in the 10 M people worldwide suffering from corneal vision impairment and as an alternative to the use of live animals and animal eyes in the $500+M market for safety testing of drugs, chemicals and consumer products,
• ISCO’s goal is to establish funding and infrastructure in India for accelerated development of CytoCor for the therapeutic application and to advance and implement the chemical testing application with partners in the US and the EU, 
• CytoRet is the brand name for ISCO’s stem cell-derived retinal tissue. ISCO.OB is using its parthenogenetic stem cells to develop individual retinal pigmented epithelial (RPE) cells and layered retinal structures,  
• Potential therapeutic applications include retinitis Pigmentosa, an untreatable inherited disease affecting about 100,000 Americans, and the dry form of age-related macular degeneration, a major cause of blindness in the elderly of the Western world,
• ISCO’s goal is to establish functional proof of concept for RPE cellular therapy in models of human disease in the next twelve-eighteen months.

These 2 cellular ophthalmology programs share a number of features and benefits:

• With the aging of the population worldwide and the growing number of work-related eye injuries in India, China and other major countries, the market opportunity is growing steadily,
• There are strong pharmaco-economic and quality-of-life rationales for full or partial vision restoration or delay of vision impairment diseases,
• Delivery of cells and tissues to the confined anatomy of the eye inherently provides for better safety and efficacy than the systemic circulation or the central nervous system,
• Lower regulatory barriers and shorter and less costly development paths compared to that of anatomically deeper and more widespread diseases should be realized,
• A number of eye diseases cannot be treated with surgery or traditional small molecule or protein therapeutics, yet cell and tissue therapy is proven to work but currently limited by availability of safe and sufficient cells and tissue from human donors,
• Eye care development programs, CytoCor and CytoRet will share a number of regulatory, development and commercial aspects that make it feasible for a competitive presence in the marketplace or in collaboration.