Orgenesis Ltd. has entered into a process development agreement with ATMI, Inc., a global technology company and provider of single-use bioprocess solutions. ATMI will supply Orgenesis with a complete disposable manufacturing process for the expansion of a patient’s liver cells outside of the body for the development of a therapeutic technology that creates insulin-producing cells as a treatment for diabetes. The two companies have also entered into a subscription agreement under which ATMI purchased $1.3 million of Orgenesis shares.
 
“We believe the groundbreaking Integrity Xpansion technology from ATMI will allow us to produce a sufficient amount of AIP (Autologous Insulin Producing) cells for transplantation back to the patient’s liver in a highly efficient and cost-effective manner,” said Sav DiPasquale, chief executive officer of Orgenesis. “We look forward to building a successful relationship with ATMI, another very strong collaboration partner for Orgenesis as we continue to work towards initiating clinical trials of our technology.”
 
Senior vice president and general manager of ATMI LifeSciences, Mario Philips, said, “The Integrity Xpansion Multiplate Single-Use Bioreactor technology was specially developed by ATMI for addressing the scaling-up challenges of cell therapy manufacturing processes. This fully industrial technology platform is very suitable for adherent fragile cell culture applications, such as the adult liver cells. We are very excited to provide this technology to Orgenesis as they work to develop a very promising new therapy for diabetes that overcomes the problem of donor shortage and reduces the risk of transplant rejection.”