Valitacell Opens New Facility at NIBRT

On Nov. 30, 2016 Valitacell opened a new facility at the National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT) in Dublin, Ireland. The team will include a staff of four led by Terry McWade, CEO. Valitacell is an Irish early-stage life-science company with technologies that improve cell performance. Valitacell’s ChemStress technology replicates the stress cells encounter in an industrial bioreactor. This is achieved by coating the wells of the 96-well plastic plate with chemicals that have been selected based on their ability to impact the cells’ metabolism.

Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells are grown on the plate, and the response of the cells to the individual chemicals is measured in terms of cell growth and ability to produce the drug. The overall response to the individual chemicals is known as the stress response fingerprint. The stress response fingerprint is the basis for several applications that when combined with analytical algorithms, can predict cell performance, cell stability, confirm cell identity, and detect batch-to-batch changes in the food media used to grow the cells. The initial target for Valitacell’s technology is the biologic drug market.