Singapore: Fate Therapeutics in collaboration with BD Biosciences, a segment of BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), launched the first induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-related product. BD SMC4 is a patent protected, pre-formulated cocktail of small molecules designed to improve cellular reprogramming efficiencies and for enabling single-cell passaging and flow cytometry sorting of iPSCs in feeder cell-free and other pluripotent cell culture systems.

According to their three-year collaboration, Fate and BD will co-develop certain stem cell products using Fate's award-winning iPSC technology platform, and BD will commercialize these stem cell products on a worldwide basis.

Dr Charles Crespi, VP, BD Biosciences, said that, "iPSCs have the potential to redefine the way medical research is conducted. However, most current reprogramming technologies are inefficient, which slows research efforts. BD SMC4 is an exciting complement to the BD portfolio of stem cell technologies that can accelerate the pace of research, and, ultimately, drug development."

Dr Peter Flynn, VP, biologic therapeutics, Fate Therapeutics, said that, "Our research focus has uncovered novel technologies to enable the commercial and industrial application of iPS cells. The BD SMC4 media additive was developed at Fate to enable our scientists to internally perform high-throughput generation, clonal selection, characterization and expansion of pluripotent cells, and we are excited to empower the stem cell research community with these important iPSC technologies through our collaboration with BD."