Reinnervate, Oncotest and SBH partner to offer 3D tumour cell screening services

Oct 31 2013

3D cell culture company Reinnervate Ltd today announced partnerships with two oncology-focussed CRO's to offer 3D tumour cell screening services. The CROs, Oncotest GmbH (Freiburg, Germany) and SBH Sciences (Natick, MA, USA) will both offer a new service for clients wishing to try out cancer 3D cell culture screening for the first time or who wish to evaluate new tumour types in their models.

The introductory service ranges in price from $1,499 to $2,499 and has the following experimental outline:

• Client picks two cancer cell lines from the available panel (over 200 tumour cell lines are available)
• Client provides up to 2 test compounds or specifies two commercially available drugs to be used
• CROs include one positive control cell line and one positive control compound
• All 3 compounds are tested on the specified 3D tumour cells cultured in Alvetex® 96 3D cell culture plates
• A dose response experiment with ten concentrations in duplicates will be performed using the Promega Cell Titer-Glo® assay
• CRO provides a comprehensive data report with IC50 values and a follow-up telephone conference
• Comparison of 2D and 3D tumour cell responses can be provided (depending on service chosen)

"These new introductory 3D tumour cell services will allow more scientists to explore the differences in drug response between 2D and 3D cultured tumour cells" said Richard Rowling, Commercial Director at Reinnervate Ltd. "These services have been priced at a level which should be affordable for most groups that have not yet had the time to explore the improved biological relevance offered by 3D cell culture systems" he added.

Torsten Giesemann, Department Head at Oncotest commented, "We have been using Alvetex® 96 3D cell culture plates for some time now and are keen to help as many clients as possible explore the potential benefits of testing new oncology drugs on 3D tumour cells cultured in a 3D format. There is an increasing body of scientific data showing that tumour cells cultured as monolayers are a poor proxy for the in vivo situation."

SBH Sciences CEO, Raphael Nir said, "We have a panel of over 200 different tumour cell lines and look forward to helping our clients evaluate 3D tumour cell screening and compare the differences in drug response between 2D and 3D cell culture systems using Alvetex® technology".