Harvard Apparatus/ Hugo Sachs Elektronik business collaborates to develop lung regeneration bioreactor

Harvard Bioscience, Inc.Jul 21 2010

Harvard Bioscience, Inc. (Nasdaq:HBIO), a global developer, manufacturer and marketer of a broad range of specialized products used to advance life science research and regenerative medicine, announces that its Harvard Apparatus / Hugo Sachs Elektronik business collaborated with Dr. Harald Ott and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) to design and manufacture a novel bioreactor that was used to grow a functional lung. The lung was subsequently transplanted into a rat. The paper, titled "Regeneration and orthotopic transplantation of a bioartificial lung," was published online in Nature Medicine on July 13, 2010.

"We congratulate Dr. Harald Ott and Massachusetts General Hospital for achieving this major advance in the field of regenerative medicine," said David Green, President of Harvard Bioscience. He continued, "For nearly two years we have been collaborating with Dr. Ott and MGH to develop the sophisticated and novel bioreactor he needed to regenerate the lung. We believe Dr. Ott was the first doctor to achieve transplantation of a regenerated lung and that this achievement marks a milestone in the development of the field of regenerative medicine."

Mr. Green continued, "Our Harvard Apparatus business was founded at Harvard Medical School over 100 years ago to develop tools to advance life science research. We are now building on our technologies in cell, tissue and organ research to create new tools that will be needed by researchers and clinicians in the new field of regenerative medicine. We believe these new tools will play a crucial enabling role as regenerative medicine continues to advance."

In addition to the lung regeneration bioreactor, Harvard Bioscience also makes and sells what it believes is the world's first commercially available bioreactor for tubular organ regeneration that has been used for a human transplant. The human bronchus transplant was reported by Dr. Paolo Macchiarini et al. in The Lancet on November 19, 2008. In addition to the Company's growing line of bioreactors, it has also announced its intention to seek FDA approval for a clinical version of its market-leading Harvard Apparatus research syringe pump technology so that it can be used on humans for regenerative medicine applications.