Rebirthel Co., Ltd. was founded in October, 2019.
Rebirthel aims to realize cell-based therapies against cancer or other immune-related diseases by using universal
T cells that are regenerated from pluripotent stem cells.
The strategy is based on methods developed by myself, Dr. Hiroshi Kawamoto (Kyoto University).
It has been shown to be effective to transfuse genetically engineered T cells that had originally been collected from patients.
However, such “autologous” settings have faced problems: costly, time-consuming, and dependent on the quality of the T cells themselves (from the patients).
To solve these problems, Rebirthel provides “off-the-shelf T cells” that can be universally used with any patients in an allogeneic setting.
Pluripotent stem cells such as iPS (induced pluripotent stem) cells or ES (embryonic stem) cells have the potential to produce various types of tissues/organs.
Rebirthel has already established a method by which potent killer T cells can be produced in vitro from iPS cells.
Using this method, Rebirthel is now developing a strategy where tumor antigen-specific T cells are mass-produced and transfused to patients as off-the-shelf T cells.
Certain types of T cells play the role of commander of immune cells, while other types serve as strong warriors.
Therefore, if we can produce different types of T cells - such as killer T cells, helper T cells, or regulatory T cells - covering a wide range of target antigens, we can provide therapeutic T cells targeting any kind of disease related to the immune system (e.g. cancer, infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases, allergies, etc.).
Rebirthel opens the way to a future when patients go to hospital to receive transfusion of T cells to treat their disease.
Message from the President
”We are pioneering a new era for treating diseases through the transfusion of T cell preparations!”
Rebirthel provides a novel treatment through a highly universal T cell preparation.
Rebirthel was founded in October 2019 with the aim of providing novel treatments against cancer, infectious diseases, and other immune-related diseases. Our strategy is based upon the technology of killer T cell regeneration from pluripotent stem cells, which was pioneered by Professor Hiroshi Kawamoto, Director of the Institute for Life and Medical Sciences, Kyoto University.
Cancer is still the leading cause of death in the world with over 20 million annual new cases (over one million diagnosed in Japan alone). Sixty percent of these cases are treatable via current protocols; however, the other forty percent are presently almost totally untreatable.
Tumor immunology has made remarkable progress. Immunotherapies such as immune checkpoint blockade or CAR-T cell therapy have shown high therapeutic efficacy on some cancers. Moreover, the mRNA vaccine developed for SARS-CoV-2 has shown remarkable success in protection against the novel coronavirus infection. Attention is increasingly focused on the natural immune system all human beings are born with, including immunotherapy and immune functions.
Rebirthel is one of the leading companies in the field of immunotherapy and has multiple globally patented technologies. These technologies enable us to produce a novel immunotherapy using killer T cells that are regenerated from pluripotent stem cells, which can be used to treat immune-related disorders such as cancer, infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases, and allergies.
In addition to our development pipeline, we also promote business and public-private-academic partnerships. We believe these collaborations contribute to the development of immune therapies throughout the entire industry, helping us to treat patients using T cell preparations as early as possible.
”We are pioneering a new era for treating diseases through the transfusion of T cell preparations!” Rebirthel makes every effort to further develop and realize novel immunotherapies.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude for your continued support and encouragement.
Rebirthel Co., Ltd.
President and CEO
Masunori Kajikawa
Kajii-cho, Kamigyo-ku, Kyoto 602-0841 Japan
Business Summary
Rebirthel operationalizes cell-based cancer immunotherapies developed by Professor Hiroshi Kawamoto (Institute for Frontier Life and Medical Sciences, Kyoto University).
Rebirthel will provide “universal” cytotoxic T lymphocytes regenerated from pluripotent stem cells, to be used as “off-the-shelf T cells” in cancer immunotherapy.
Company history
Rebirthel took over all projects and intellectual properties related to killer T cells.
･Regcell raised 620,000,000 JPY through a third-party allocation of new shares.
･Regcell raised 20,000,000 JPY through a third-party allocation of new shares.
Transferred cells will immediately be rejected if the HLA haplotype does not match to that of the recipient.
In the regenerative medicine field, induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells stock projects have been promoted where iPS cells that have been produced from healthy donors carrying the same HLA haplotype in both mother and father-derived alleles.
The cells/tissues regenerated from such iPS cells are expected to be transplanted to recipients who have the same HLA haplotype of at least one allele without inducing a severe rejection reaction.
At present, the most frequent four iPS cell lines are available from the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (Kyoto University), covering 35% of the Japanese population.
We transduce these iPS cells with exogenous TCR and regenerate killer T cells from these iPSCs. Such regenerated T cells will be given to the patients in a HLA homo-to-hetero transfusion setting.
When the HLA genes of iPS cells are deleted, cells/tissues regenerated from such HLA-null-iPS cells can be transplanted to any patient.
This strategy can be applied not only for iPS cells but also for ES cells.
OP9 cell line and its genetically modified derivatives
Rebirthel has succeeded all rights of the OP9 cells from Dr. Hiroaki Kodama (who originally established the OP9 cell line).
You are required to obtain a license from Rebirthel for commercial use of the OP9 cell line or its derivatives.
OP9 cells
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Professor Hiroshi Kawamoto, an executive director of Rebirthel and the Vice Director of Institute for Frontier Life and Medical Sciences, Kyoto University, appeared on the TV program “Hodo Station” pr...
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