AstraZeneca has partnered with Procella Therapeutics and Smartwise, wholly owned subsidiaries of SWIB Holdings, a Stockholm, Sweden-based biotech and medical-device investment company, to develop ways of regenerating parts of the heart muscle that have been damaged by a heart attack, using Procella Therapeutics’ stem-cell technology, as well as catheter injection methods, using Smartwise’s Extroducer catheter.

The Extroducer catheter was developed at the Karolinska Institutet, a Swedish research institute, for potential uses in cancer treatment and tissue repair in various organs and was subsequently coated with technology from Bactiguar, a Swedish medical-device company.

AstraZeneca will pay an undisclosed upfront access fee and fund the research collaboration. SWIB Holdings has the potential to receive up to $320 million in clinical development milestones and sales-related commercial threshold payments, once the products have been commercialized.

Source: SWIB Holdings