(Image courtesy of Orig3n)
On a recent Friday afternoon in Washington, D.C., Boston biotechnology startup Orig3n pitched a tent at one of the largest running events in the United States, the Marine Corp Marathon, and asked passersby to donate a small vial of blood in the name of science. Throughout the race weekend, Orig3n attracted hundreds of visitors, which meant hundreds of new blood samples.
Orig3n’s mission is to build the largest repository of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells to advance research in regenerative medicine. These cells are valuable to scientists because they can be programmed into different types of embryonic-like cells that can, in turn, form various human body tissues. Since they’re grown from an individual’s own cells, the promise of iPS cells is that they won’t be rejected by the recipient’s immune system. Orig3n is focusing on creating neurons, heart cells and liver cells to study rare, genetically-inherited diseases.
When serial entrepreneur Robin Smith founded Orig3n in 2014, he first tried to take his idea to doctors and hospitals, who he hoped would convince patients to donate their cells to research. But Smith found the process too slow; it took months just to get a few samples from patients. That’s when Smith decided to cut out the middleman and go directly to the source.
“We think we can really democratize scientific research by getting contributors to add their samples to our library with their consent,” Smith said in an interview.
That philosophy has taken Orig3n to marathons, health fairs, music festivals, famers markets and other events around the country. When people donate a blood sample, their cells are added to the ever-growing biobank, dubbed Life Capsule. “The response has been tremendous. We get people lining up to our booth and they’re excited to contribute,” Smith said.
Donors also have the option of becoming a member for $99 a year and banking their cells for their own use in the future, not just for general medical research.
Eventually, Orig3n hopes to generate a large, genetically diverse population of iPS cells that would be a resource to both medical institutions and biotech and pharmaceutical companies looking to use the stem cell lines for research. So far, Orig3n has collected thousands of samples (it wouldn’t say exactly how many) and gets a few hundred donors at each event.
To build its early revenue stream, Orig3n also offers two genetic tests: FitCode for $149 and Aura for $99. The tests analyze a set number of genes to offer insight about key aspects of a person's physical fitness and skin health, respectively. “Through these tests we’re bringing value to customers, and in the meantime, we’re putting our efforts into building the right type of robust science to help develop this stem cell technology to a point where it’s really pervasive,” Smith said.
The company has licensed technology to coax, or differentiate, iPS cells into other types of human cells from iPS Academia Japan. First engineered by Shinya Yamanaka at Kyoto University in Japan in 2006, the original cell reprogramming method uses viruses to introduce new DNA into adult cells. Though no iPS cell-derived therapies have been approved for humans yet, the first clinical trial using these cells is underway in Japan. These stem cells are also being used in disease modeling and drug efficacy testing at medical institutions around the world.
Already the fledgling company is garnering attention. In May, it announced a collaboration with diagnostic heavyweight LabCorp, which will provide storage for LifeCapsule at its biorepository facilities.
Orig3n isn’t the only one offering iPS cell banking. The Harvard Stem Cell Institute, California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Coriell Institute in New Jersey, RUCDR Infinite Biologics at Rutgers University and WiCell in Wisconsin are among others. The question, for now, is which of these stem cell lines and banks will be economically viable in the long run.
