New Distributor of Cryopreserved Terminally Differentiated Human Hepatic Cells

Merck Millipore recently announced that the company will be the initial distributor of HepaRG(TM) human hepatic cells from Biopredic. HepaRG cells, derived from a hepatocellular carcinoma, are supplied as cryopreserved, terminally differentiated cells and express major liver specific functions including Cytochrome P450 enzymes and drug transporters.

HepaRG cells provide a number of advantages over primary hepatocytes and liver slices for characterisation of the uptake, metabolism, and disposition of drug candidates, drug discovery, and high throughput screening. The supply of primary cells and tissue can be unpredictable and other transformed lines such as HepG2 have not gained widespread use due to loss of specific liver functions such as Cytochrome P450, thus impacting the proper assessment of toxicity.

“With more than 900 drugs having been implicated in causing liver injury and toxicity, there is a need for more accurate prediction of hepatic cytotoxicity and genotoxicity in humans,” noted Umesh A. Patel, PhD, Director, Lead Discovery. “While in vitro human liver preparations offer the most pertinent models, availability and inter-donor variability are significant drawbacks. In contrast, HepaRG(TM) cells reproducibly express the activities drug metabolising enzymes and transporters to facilitate ADME/tox studies.”