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Company
Profile
Located
in a modern lab facility in Sausalito, California, Xgene Corporation was founded to
develop and commercialize two promising new technologies:
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CeSSEŌ
(Cell-Sorted Skin Equivalent, pronounced “cease”), a propietary
technology for producing a full-thickness human skin equivalent termed
AccuskinTM.
-
a
recent Xgene advance in the area of the control of gene
expression.
Skin
Engineering
The
Company is focusing its initial product development on products
incorporating the CeSSE technology, a unique process for
creating a “full-thickness” skin equivalent incorporating both
epidermis and dermis. Xgene intends to be a leader in developing
engineered skin products including high-throughput assays for drug
candidate testing and skin equivalent for medical grafting
applications.
Xgene believes it can make a significant contribution
to the elimination of animal testing by creating testing products
based on the CeSSE technology. Xgene’s products will satisfy the
powerful political demands for the cessation
of animal testing and the tremendous industrial demand for
alternatives to animal testing.
Xgene intends to
build on its technical advance to offer a high level of scientific
expertise in the field of cutaneous biology, and to aid in the design and
implementation of new skin products. This will make Xgene an ideal corporate
collaborator for companies interested in developing the new
generation of skin care products.
Genomics
Xgene
will also develop a new technology based on recent company work
relating to the regulation of gene expression. The importance of the human genome to
human health is no longer in question and increasingly it is
recognized that inappropriate gene expression lies at the heart of
most human diseases. Recent research has established the role played
by genes in cardiovascular disease, immune disorders, inflammation
and obesity, more often than not the result of inappropriate gene
activity.
However, despite the immense progress made in
biotechnology in recent years, the mechanism by which genes are
selectively turned on ("expressed") or off remains a
mystery. Xgene believes it has a powerful new technology for
improving our understanding this mechanism.
This discovery has many applications
including developing new gene-based products for the skin, testing products for both research and medical
diagnosis, and
developing new approaches to the treatment of a variety of diseases
caused by inappropriate gene expression.
Intellectual
Property
The
patent position for the CeSSETM technology, as well as multiple patents pending on enhancements of this
technology, is owned by Xgene Corporation worldwide. Xgene also has
patents-pending on multiple aspects of its gene regulation-related technology.
Development
Strategy
Xgene
intends to accelerate the exploitation of its technologies by developing
strong, funded collaborations with pharmaceutical, biotech,
cosmetic and other interested firms. The Company has already entered
into collaborative agreements with other firms, and is actively seeking
additional corporate partners for collaborations in both skin engineering and genomics.
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