瑞典Cellartis AB
阿斯利康与瑞典Cellartis公司表示，二者已签署了一项协议，延长目前正在进行的一项合作。该合作旨在开发基于人类胚胎干细胞生成的肝及心肌细胞的改良安全性筛选系统。

此次签署的协议表明两家公司将延长于2006年7月签署的一项为期两年的合作协议，该协议旨在研究从已建立的人类胚胎干细胞（hESC）生产线上获得的细胞是否能够被分化为机能人类肝细胞及心肌细胞。两家公司表示：“分化技术的进一步改进，将使科学家能够在药物开发过程更早时期，更好地预测药物的代谢以及其对人类肝及心脏可能产生的副作用。”

Cellartis首席执行官Mats Lundwall表示，此项合作“目前正进入令人兴奋的阶段”，其还表示：“我们一直在通过此类交易确认我们作为hESC领域领军人物的声誉。”

阿斯利康负责开发事务的执行副总裁Jan Lundberg表示：“如果我们能够确实成功地建立一个分化胚胎干细胞的稳定供应，我们将能够更准确地检测出新药的副作用。”其还表示：“这一突破可能会降低损耗率从而提高研发生产力，并最终为患者提供更安全的药物。尽管依然存在重大科学障碍，但我们正在取得良好的进展并获得宝贵的经验。”（


Cellartis AB is a Swedish/British biotechnology company focused on human embryonic stem (hES) cells and technology for drug discovery research, toxicity testing and regenerative medicine. The company is the world’s largest single source of ethically derived hES cell lines and has developed more than 30 ethically derived cell lines. The main business objective of Cellartis is to develop hepatocytes and cardiomyocytes from the proprietary stem cells for use as tools in drug discovery.

The company's strategy is to accelerate product development by working in partnership with academia and industry towards advanced stem cell products and technologies. Cellartis was founded in 2001 and is located in state of art facilities in Göteborg, Sweden and in Dundee, UK. The laboratories are prepared to meet the EU guidelines for current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP).

Moreover, Cellartis has implemented a quality system and laboratory standards that meet the foreseeable future demands. Cellartis is focused on quality and scale-up production, which are crucial success factors for future growth. Therefore, Cellartis has expanded its operation into automated cell production and built the world's first production facility to make large volumes of hES cells.

Cellartis welcomes strategic alliances and are actively seeking collaboration partners from the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.