HUMAN TISSUE REGENERATION IS SEEVIX’S ULTIMATE GOAL
Seevix Material Sciences Ltd. is a privately-held biotech company producing high-strength SVX™, a state-of-the-art biopolymer material, inspired by spider silk, capable of endowing everyday products with all of its outstanding properties. This works by using recombinant DNA technologies in a unique way to replicate the natural process of spider silk creation, thereby directly generating genuine spider silk. When assimilated into various materials, SVX enhances their physical properties, enabling the development of sustainable, lighter, thinner, and tougher composites as building blocks for the next generation of customizable, high-performance products that will change the life science industry.
SVX’s outstanding properties can be used to reinvent many products for use in the medical devices, cosmetics, defense, sports, textiles, automotive, and aerospace industries.
Practical applications for SVX include reducing animal testing, thinner stronger surgical sutures, lightweight durable scaffolds for orthopedic reconstructive surgery, surgical meshes, dental and orthopedic implants, and bio-dressings to boost wound healing as well as for cultivated meat.
Seevix Material Sciences Ltd. was approved to take part in the $ 18 million Cultivated Meat Consortium, approved by the Israel Innovation Authority. The consortium consists of 14 companies and 10 academic labs and aims to develop more efficient, cost-competitive production methods and pilot scale-up opportunities that are aligned with the food industry of cultivated meat.
SpheroSeev and HydroSeev are two products developed using SVX technology for 3D cell culturing, bioprinting, and tissue modeling. The two products conserve cell function over time, delay cell death, and maintain cells and tissue model integrity during prolonged culturing. They are non-toxic scaffolds and biocompatible in order to improve the viability, function, and general health of the 3D cultures at many levels.
SpheroSeev is used to increase the surface area of 3D spheroid cell cultures by intercalating between cells, improving the availability of oxygen and nutrients, enabling more efficient waste removal, and providing extracellular matrix-like mechanical support for the cells.
“We used the SpheroSeev in order to grow epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) spheroids from the human ovarian cancer line – OvCar3. In the presence of the SpheroSeev, the viability of the spheroids increased significantly. In addition, the SpheroSeev improved the sensitivity of the cytotoxicity assay (using chemotherapy and the Ovcar3 spheroids), said Dr Dalit Landesman-Milo, Co-Founder, Biop Medical and from Prof Dan Peer’s Laboratory for Precise NanoMedicine, Tel Aviv University.
“SpheroSeev ‘s 3D matrix works really well. I could find a nice spheroid. The product was used with colorectal cancer cell lines,” stated Dr Nishanth Belugali Nataraj from Prof Yosef Yarden’s lab at the Weizmann Institute.”
HydroSeev, added to standard hydrogels for bioprinting and use in tissue modeling, improves the printability of the hydrogel while enabling better permeability and stability within the hydrogels. This mimics physiological conditions, thereby enabling a higher exposure to molecules for drug screening. This has been tested and confirmed in proliferating cell lines and primary cell lines using drug and toxicity screenings.
Shlomzion Shen, CEO, Seevix stated, “Ordinarily, scaffolds are either protein-based, mimicking the physiological extracellular matrix for cells and exhibiting good biocompatibility, or synthetic, providing suitable mechanical strength and a porous architecture. The remarkable advantage of SpheroSeev and HydroSeev is that our products combine all of these benefits. There are no trade-offs. Additionally, SpheroSeev and HydroSeev are animal-free, have great shelf-lives due to their resilience, and don’t require shipment on ice or special handling.”
Seevix has partnered with PELOBIOTECH and Stellar Scientific to sell their products in Europe and the US. Seevix aims to improve its toxicology testing modes to minimize animal testing. Additionally, they are working to create a scaffold for use in the cultured meat industry. Seevix products can serve various roles in this endeavor as an ECM substitute, a slow-release carrier of growth factors, and a contributor to the texture of the chunk of meat. This will in fact allow for better access to nutrients and oxygen which will support the prolonged functionality and viability of the cultured meat.
SpheroSeev and HydroSeev are currently in their early sales stage. Seevix was granted a Horizon 2020 SME Instrument Phase 1 grant No. 815882 for the development for purposes of bio-engineered skin substitutes for the advanced wound care market.
Currently, Seevix is seeking additional stakeholders, including CROs, distributors and manufacturers, medical centers, and companies interested in using SVX-based scaffold products for their drug-development programs.
About Seevix
Seevix Material Sciences Ltd. is a privately-held biotech company established in 2014. Its patented SVX synthetic spider silk, backed by over ten years of research at the Hebrew University, targets applications where the addition of SVX’s extraordinary properties and biocompatibility can radically improve existing products and provide solutions for unmet industrial needs. SVX is manufactured by means of a single-step production process, enabling scalable, green, commercial manufacturing that reduces production time and costs. Seevix’s exceptional multidisciplinary R&D team of biologists, chemists, and material engineers is dedicated to creating next-generation SVX-based products in a host of different industries, providing its partners with a sustainable competitive edge.
Funding Status: Seevix is seeking investors and strategic partners to raise $15 million for an industrial-scale spider silk manufacturing facility in Israel and for its marketing and sales operations.
For further information contact Dr. Shomzion Shen (shlomzi AT seevix.com) or visit the website (www.seevix.com)
Source: Seevix www.seevix.com
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