Starpharma Holdings Ltd today announced the first commercial product launch based on its Priostar dendrimer technology.
The product, a research reagent kit called NanoJuice Transfection Kit for transporting DNA into cells, was developed under a license and supply agreement established in February 2007 between Starpharma's wholly owned US subsidiary Dendritic Nanotechnologies (DNT) and EMD Chemicals Inc., an affiliate of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.
Under the commercial agreement, Starpharma retains full rights to all in vivo aspects of transfecting DNA and other nucleic acids such as siRNA with products based on Priostar technology. Starpharma supplies the Priostar dendrimers and will receive royalties from the sale of the transfection kits.
The NanoJuice Transfection Kit launched by EMD Chemicals will be marketed to researchers as an improved product for optimal transfection efficiencies, low toxicity to cells and flexibility in the conditions of transfection.
In addition, the reagent is suitable for use with all types of cell growth media and does not require that the medium be changed after addition, thereby affording researchers substantial savings in time and money.
The transfection reagent in the kit is based on Starpharma's Priostar dendrimers, highly branched spherical molecules with a high concentration of active groups on the surface that bind to DNA and are taken up by cells. It is the only reagent available that has been optimized for different cell lines through the use of different sizes of dendrimer.
The kit was designed to achieve efficient transfection of mammalian cells, especially those derived directly from tissues (so-called 'primary' cells), as well as the cell lines that are traditionally difficult to transfect.
The kit consists of Priostar dendrimers mixed with microscopic lipid-based spheres that carry multiple positively charged groups.
DNT expects EMD to launch a related siRNA transfection reagent kit later in 2008.
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